A second CO shouted, "You won't get away with it, Joe!"
Mundy stirred, and when he did, Nat felt something hit her hand. She looked down. There was a bulge in the back of Mundy's jacket, around his belt. A gun.
"Very good job, folks," Williams was saying. Warden McCoy looked terrified, the gun boring into his temple. "Y'all doin' a very good job, and I'm mighty proud of you. Don't nobody do nothin' stupid and we all gonna be all right."
Nat eyed the crowd. Nobody was moving. They couldn't take the chance. Williams was getting away. The warden's brow sweated in the lights. Anyone's movement could trigger the murder of the warden and Tanisa. Nat couldn't be seen behind Mundy's back. She was too short, and for once, it was an advantage. She had to do something. She stayed perfectly still except for her hand, which she slipped under the back of Mundy's jacket. If the trooper felt anything, he was too smart to let it show. The unfolding scene was proving her right. He must be letting her take it. She reached the handle of the gun and pulled. But it didn't come.
"Me and my friends gonna take these good people wit' us." Williams's voice grew closer. He must have been directly in front of Mundy. "We gonna drop em off, good as new, when we're clear. So stay cool and nobody gets hurt."
Nat tried the gun again but it didn't move. Was it stuck? No. It must have been in a holster. Her fingers found some kind of latch over the gun handle. She fumbled and felt a snap, unfastened it, and finally slid the gun free. It was warm from Mundy's body heat, and its barrel caught the dark light.
Okay, I'm not shooting anybody. The teachers can't do everything around here.
Nat took the gun and eased it slowly under Mundy's right hand, and she felt an almost physical tingle when he accepted it from her, betraying no movement.
Williams was saying, "Y'all stay-"
Suddenly Mundy swung his arm up and fired the gun. It exploded in an earsplitting pop pop pop, setting off a horrifying fusillade. The shooting happened in a sickening blur. A red hole exploded in Williams's temple. He crumpled. The attack startled Parrat, and Tanisa turned and elbowed him. He fell away and was instantly cut down by the cops in the crowd, his body spinning with the impact of the bullets.
Graf aimed for Mundy, but flew backward when he was shot himself, his gun spraying bullets. One hit Machik in the head and he went down, dropping on the spot. The crowd surged forward, almost knocking Nat over. She let them rush past, squeezing her eyes shut against what she had just seen. She couldn't believe that it had happened.
She half-stumbled and half-walked away, breathing in fresh air. She bent over and leaned on the huge, cold bumper of one of the fire trucks, praying to keep nausea at bay. In the next minute, she felt a large hand on her shoulder and turned around. It was Mundy, slipping the gun back into its holster.
"You okay, professor?" he asked.
"More or less." Nat smiled shakily. She couldn't believe it was finally over. "Okay, less."
"You did nice work. You got guts. Sorry I gave you such a hard time."
"S'okay." Nat didn't say I-told-you-so. It didn't feel like a victory after so much carnage.
"You wanna show me that tunnel?" Mundy threw a comforting arm around her shoulder.
Nat nodded, wiping away a tear that came from nowhere.
Chapter 44
Nat sat in her chair in the dingy interview room, recorded by the black videocamera and fueled by a cup of bad coffee, and explained to Trooper Mundy, Trooper Duffy, and an assistant D.A. everything that had happened since the last time she sat there. She included her discovery of the stop on the Underground Railroad, but they seemed less excited than she about the historical angle. After she had finished, the three of them left her in the interview room, to confer. She thought of calling a lawyer, but decided against it. She felt newly competent, happily.
Nat waited and took inventory. They'd put a Band-Aid on her forehead, and her neck hurt from when that man near the prison had pulled her down. She brushed off her pants, ripped at the knee. Her clogs were soaked, and she couldn't remember the last time her toes had been dry. She thought about Angus, but hadn't called him or her parents yet. This interview had gone on longer than she thought it would. She checked her watch just as the door opened and Mundy came back alone.
"Bad news," he said, closing the door softly behind him.
"I'm going up the river?"
"No." He smiled tiredly, then pulled out a chair and plunked down so hard it skidded. "We sent somebody out to pick up Jim Graf, from that construction company."
"Phoenix."
"Right." Mundy leaned on his heavy thigh and looked at her with his frank brown eyes. "He's dead. Hanged himself in the bathroom."
Nat felt it in her gut. She wondered how Agnes, Graf's secretary, would react. She reached for the coffee and took a cold gulp.
"He was going down and he knew it."
"That's awful." Nat set down the Styrofoam cup, and Mundy ran a hand through his hair.
"So where we go from here is that we'll start our investigation, verifying what you told us. I think it'll square with your story." He shook his head. "That tunnel sure was something else."
"It was." Nat couldn't believe it herself. A football-field-long tunnel, more a crawlspace than anything, that began from the new staff room and ended in the middle of the evergreens, away from the houses. The tunnel had been reinforced with two-by-fours, like the one she'd seen on the Underground Railroad, but less well made. Graf and his pals lacked the brains, and the heart, of those people.
"We also got troopers canvassing on the street, and two neighbors reported seeing a cop car parked there tonight. They always see cop cars around the prison, so they didn't report it."
"They didn't know it was Parrat, in the fake copmobile."
"Right." Mundy arched an eyebrow. "Quite a plan. Most bad guys aren't that smart."
"Williams was a smart bad guy. The CEO of bad guys."
Mundy chuckled, checking his pad. '"Course we're not bringing charges against you for Matty, or the attempt on Barb Saunders."
"How is she?"
"No change."
Nat felt a twinge.
"We'll be talking with the warden and his deputy, but we don't think they're involved at this point. Machik is as high up as it went."
"Not everybody would be. It was an unwieldy conspiracy to start out with, between bad guys and good guys. At least formerly good guys."
"But we can't prosecute the dead. So it's all over, at least the legalities.
"Somebody should follow up with Upchurch's aunt, Mrs. Rhoden. She deserves at least to be compensated for what happened to her nephew, as if that were possible."
"I got that."
Nat thought of Machik getting shot, and of Graf. Then Graf's cute little boy, skipping to his karate lesson, and his nice wife. "Don't these men consider their families when they do stuff like this?"
"Honestly, no. Families aren't as important to them as money. Speaking of which, I'm supposed to tell you that you do have some things to account for, young lady." Mundy checked his pad and slid a yellow pencil from his breast pocket. "You vandalized public property."
"What?"
"The propane tanks and the fence."
Nat scoffed. "Gimme a break."
"My hands are tied."
"Are you serious?"
"This is a charging decision by the D.A." Mundy made another check. "Also, they're charging you with criminal mischief."
Nat snorted. "For keying the pickup?"
Mundy blinked. "What?"
Oops. "What for?"
"Setting fire to the Neon."
Nat didn't object, and Mundy looked up, surprised.
"You okay with that?"
"I like thinking of myself as mischievous. It's my new thing." Nat stood up and brushed off her pants. "Anyway, this sounds like fines."