Deke drove Ellie and the kids to their favorite pizza parlor, a few minutes away, his mind a jumble of contradictory emotions. Relief that nothing had happened. Regret at making that phone call. Cowardice for feeling that regret.
The entire drive, Deke couldn’t keep his eyes off the rearview and side-view mirrors.
16
These walls are funny. First you hate ’em, then you get used to ’em. Enough time passes, you get so you depend on them.
—Morgan Freeman, The Shawshank Redemption
OVER THE NEXT dozen shifts Hardie waited, learning the patterns. There were four shifts to cover the twenty-four-hour day. Not that they truly measured days—they had timers strapped to their wrists, not watches. Six hours a shift, one guard per shift, with another serving as backup. Each “day,” the prisoners removed their masks and were photographed with a handheld plastic digital camera. The guards took those cameras to the uploading room, and the images were sent to somebody in the outside world. A proof of life. Meant for whom? Who knows.
Hardie himself was on Prisoner Zero detail, checking pee tubes and IV lines twice a day and listening to the creepy son of a bitch grunt and wheeze and laugh to himself. Or to no one in particular.
Guh-huh. Huh-huh. Huh-huh-huhhhhhhhhhhh.
No one asked for Zero’s proof of life. Which was a relief. Hardie wasn’t in any great rush to see what was under that mask.
Otherwise, prisoners were confined to their cells for twenty-three and a half hours a day. Some form of disgusting breakfast food, barely heated in a battered, rusty toaster oven, was served during two of the three shifts that were considered “day.”
Hardie again thought about those food deliveries. If there was a way in for food and medical supplies, there had to be a way out, no matter what Victor said. And what about trash? Trash had to go somewhere.
“Whatever isn’t used, we burn,” Victor said. “But we tend to reuse whatever we can.”
“Doing your part for the environment.”
“All these questions,” Victor said, a curious smile on his face. “You do realize this is a prison, Warden? Maximum security and all that? Do you think the designers of this place would leave anything to chance, and let some prisoner shimmy up a vent or something? Do you think the designers of this place haven’t seen Star Wars?”
And Victor was the friendliest guard, in his own passive-aggressive way. The other three eyed him with suspicion. Worry. Hostility. Uncertainty. Maybe they knew what he was up to. Maybe they could sense he wasn’t taking this seriously. They’d be right, of course.
Hardie needed to gain their trust somehow, put them at ease. He couldn’t escape if his own staff was keeping a closer eye on him than the actual prisoners.
God help him…
He needed to hold a staff meeting.
After the fourteenth (fifteenth?) shift, Hardie asked Victor to gather everyone in the break room.
“Why? What’s going on?” Victor asked.
“Just get everyone together.”
“No sneak preview, Warden?”
Hardie shook his head no. Victor actually seemed hurt, then shuffled off to gather the other three guards.
“For those of you who don’t speak English,” Hardie said, “my apologies. Maybe someone can translate for you.”
Everyone just…stared, as if they had all lost the ability to speak or understand English.
Christ, Hardie hated this shit. Because you know what? He was used to being the one in the back of the room, giving the ice-cold stare. He was never the leader of anything. Not for more than a decade, anyway, and back then it was different. Nate Parish had often goaded him, asking him why he didn’t go legit, join the force, wear the badge and all that. One good word from me, Nate said, and you’d be in. But Hardie demurred. He wasn’t a team kind of guy. He preferred to be freelance. A consultant. Whatever you want to call it. He’d often tell Nate: “Problem is, there’s no ‘fuck off’ in ‘team.’” And Nate would just shake his head and smile in that sly, knowing way of his.
Somewhere up in heaven, Nate’s sides were probably killing him from laughing so hard. Look at Charlie Hardie, trying to lead a meeting.
So, Nate, what would you do?
Give ’em something. Something little. A peace offering. Let ’em know you’re working for them behind the scenes.
“I finally spoke with the Prisonmaster.”
Some eyes perked up a little.
“And he’s working on the heat.”
Yankee sighed. “Yeah, he always says that. And then it takes weeks, or more, to change it. You can push him a little harder, you know. You’re the new guy. You’ve got a grace period. He’s just testing you, see how far you’ll go.”
Hardie ignored him. “Food’s changing, too.”
“Oh, yeah?” Victor asked. “When will that little miracle happen, exactly?”
Hardie felt a little sucker-punched there. Victor was turning on him now?
“He’s working on it,” Hardie said.
“Same old shit,” Yankee muttered.
So much for giving ’em something, Nate. Maybe he should just get to the point.
“I want to talk about the breakout from a few days ago. What you people did to Horsehead. I don’t know what’s gone on in the past. And I really don’t give a shit. But that’s not going to happen anymore. Not without my authority. You understand me?”
No one spoke at first. The four of them seemed to be waiting him out, the same way you wait for some crazy crackhead with a gun to run out of bullets before you calmly step out from the shadows and put him down with two to the chest.
Yankee coughed and raised his hand briefly. “Warden.”
“Yeah.”
“Respectfully, how do you suggest we control the prisoners? When they escape, do we pat their hand, tell them that’s okay, everything will be all right?”
“No,” Hardie said. “But you don’t beat the living shit out of them, then nearly electrocute them to death.”
“The batons are designed to be nonlethal,” Yankee said quietly. “It’s impossible to kill someone with them.”
“Bullshit. I saw what you guys did. And like I said, I don’t care how it was around here before, I don’t care what the previous wardens did, I want it to stop.”
“So,” Yankee said, drawing the word out until it almost purred. “The next escape attempt we’re supposed to just hang back until you tell us what to do? That will be interesting. What if you’re asleep? Or taking a shit? You expect us to just wait until you’re done?”
“Yeah, I do.”
The moment the words left Hardie’s mouth he realized it was a tactical error. Because what he said was stupid. See, Nate, this is why you can’t put me in front of a room. I’m not a leader. I’m not a policy maker. I’m a doer. You know that better than anybody.
“Bool-sheet,” X-Ray said. The German guard may not have been able to speak English, but he could understand enough of it.
“No, that’s actually brilliant,” Victor said. “While we wait, maybe the loose prisoner can help free his friends. And then they can come after us and kill us all, and the Prisonmaster can send down another group of guards with yet another lame-ass warden for them to torment.”
“Enough!” said Yankee. “We’re ignoring the real problem here, and that’s the obvious plant among the staff. Horsehead didn’t just walk through solid bars. He had help.”