“Whiskey? X-Ray?”
“You know—the NATO alphabet? Hey, it’s better than colors, for fuck’s sake. Anyway, when a new guard arrives, they’re given the next letter down. Next guard will be Zulu. Then Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, and so on. What’s funny is, I’ve been Victor so long it’s starting to feel like my real name.”
“So that makes me…what, Zulu?”
“No, that makes you the warden. So from here on out, we call you Warden. They didn’t explain this to you?”
No, they—or in this case, Mann—had neglected to add this little detail. Warden. Hardie shook his head in disbelief. He’d spent two years as a house sitter. Now, if this bearded dude with a fake name was telling the truth, Hardie was in charge of running the Big House. It was almost a joke. Was God up there laughing? Did God even exist?
“Right,” Hardie said. “Okay. Well, if I’m the warden, pardon me while I take a look around the place.”
And look for the fucking exit.
“Hang on,” Victor said. “Got some prezzies for you.”
The guard reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of goggles and a small plastic teardrop.
“What’s this?” Hardie asked as Victor dropped the items into his hand.
“The goggles help block out some of the fluorescent lights, since they never turn them off—even in our quarters. You’ll also want to wear them when dealing with the prisoners. Some of them have been known to, uh, spit.”
They reminded Hardie of a child’s plastic swimming goggles. He turned them over and saw that the insides of the lenses were indeed dark—pitch-black as the screen on a busted TV.
“And the earpiece”—Victor tapped his right ear—“is how we communicate with each other. You want to call the other guards, just make a single whistle and click twice. That engages the system. Watch.”
Hardie sat there, watching.
“Well, you have to put the earbud in first,” Victor said.
After turning it around with his fingers, Hardie gave in. Sure. I’ll put the stupid plastic thing in my ear. And sure enough, the daffy bastard whistled, a kind of a Star Trek communicator–style trill, then made two fast clicking noises. Now Hardie could hear Victor’s voice coming from two distinct locations: right in front of him, and directly inside his ear canal.
“Pretty neat, huh?”
Another male voice quickly chimed in: “Everything all right, Victor?”
“Yes—sorry, mate. Just giving the warden an earpiece demonstration.”
“Is he awake?”
“Yes, Yankee, he’s awake,” Victor said. “And he’s listening.”
Victor made two clicks, and the earbud went dead.
“I think Yankee was taking a little nap there. Sucks to have to wake the others, but communication is everything in this place. If something happens, you want to know the other guards will come running immediately.”
“Right.”
So there was some kind of wireless system down here. Hardie wondered if he could figure out a way to broadcast a signal beyond these walls. This would do no good if the secret prison were buried in the middle of nowhere, of course. And Hardie had no idea how cell phones worked, let alone how to hijack a wireless communications system and make it broadcast out. But it was something. A possibility.
Hardie finally wrapped a hand around his cane and steadied himself. He wished Victor weren’t here. If Hardie was going to fall on his ass, he’d rather do it in peace and quiet. He tried waiting a few seconds, not making eye contact.
But Victor wasn’t the kind of guy to take a hint. So Hardie steadied his right hand on the cane, then used his left leg to push himself upright. The world went a little fuzzy for a few seconds…and then it only got worse. Hardie thought he was in real danger of passing out.
Victor smiled and clapped him on the back, massaging him for a second, which was a second longer than Hardie liked.
“You’re a real old-school badass, aren’t you?” Victor asked.
“How about you don’t touch me?”
Hardie moved the cane, then his good leg. Cane, good leg. A few more steps and he had a system going. By the time he reached the doorway, however, a guard was blocking his path.
* * *
It was the female guard. Arms crossed, cold, hard stones in her eyes. Hardie couldn’t help but think: this is it. They would admit they had been kidding about the whole warden thing. And then they would savagely beat his ass, and he’d be forced to defend himself with his old-man cane before being thrown into a cell.
Instead, Victor made a hasty introduction.
“Warden, this is Whiskey.”
She just stared at him, eyes slicing straight through his skull.
“Not my brand, obviously,” Hardie said.
Standing behind her was one of the other male guards—one with black Brillo-pad hair and a white mitten of gauze around his right hand. He must have been the one who had gotten his paw caught in the elevator door.
“Hello, Warden. I’d shake your hand, but…”
“Yeah,” Hardie said. “Understood.”
“That’s Yankee,” Victor said.
Victor.
Whiskey.
Yankee.
Was all this for real?
But the biggest absurdity was the idea that he was in charge of these people. If this was all legit, and they (that word again) actually put Hardie to work as the warden of a secret prison to work off some perceived debt, then they could have done a lot better with somebody else. Like, anybody else. Hardie was a born loner. Not only did he not play nice with others, he couldn’t fucking stand others. Everyone except Kendra, the boy, and Nate Parish. And Nate was dead.
Besides that… all Hardie wanted to do was get the fuck out of there. Like he’d spend a single second doing something other than trying to escape?
Victor smiled and said, “All we’re missing is X-Ray. But you can meet him later.”
“Yeah,” Hardie said. “X-Ray. Sure.”
The female guard stepped forward, said, in shaky English: “Warden.”
Already, the Warden shit was getting real old fast. “Look, guys,” Hardie said. “Why don’t you just call me Ch—”
“Hey, now,” Yankee said, shaking his head. “No names. You know that. Victor, he knows that, right?”
“He knows,” Victor said, wagging his finger at Hardie. “You know…right?”
Whiskey reached out to touch Hardie’s arm. “We need…heat.”
“What?”
“On gelé,” she said. “It is…too cold.”
“So find the thermostat and turn it up.”
Yankee gave him a confused look. “Only the Prisonmaster can do that.”
“Who?”
“The Prisonmaster,” Victor said. “The man in charge of sending down food, medical supplies, and new clothing as needed. And only the Warden can talk to the Prisonmaster to make these requests.”
Victor and Yankee exchanged a brief look. Hardie probably wasn’t meant to catch it—but he did.
Turning his attention back to Hardie, Victor said, “Look, I was getting to that. This is how it works down here. You call it in, the Prisonmaster has it sent it down. He also controls the environmentals—heat, cooling, water temperature. Without a warden, the Prisonmaster’s been just sending down the bare minimums, enough to keep the facility running. Even environmental requests were ignored.”
“So you want me to talk to this Prisonmaster guy and ask him to turn up the heat?”
“If you would,” Yankee said with a smile that was meant to be charming but came off as slightly overeager, bordering on homicidal. “And there’s also the food situation.”