“That’s the cunt’s Achilles heel. Punch him hard enough in the small of the back and he’ll fold like a fuckin’ deck chair. All I want is one shot at his back. Just one, for old times’ sake.”
Well, Hardie was simply passing the sentiment along.
Hardie knew he didn’t have much strength or time. He had to incapacitate his old buddy Victor/Ashley here quick and clean.
He was considering a chop to the throat and a few more punches to the kidneys when he saw it, over in the corner.
His cane.
That little black beauty with the curved handle and the fifty thousand volts of sheer electric hell inside.
Hardie shuffled over to it, unsheathed the end—oh, how he wished he’d realized what this puppy did when he first arrived—then came back and gave his old buddy Victor enough shocks to make him reconsider consciousness. Then after picking Victor’s pockets clean of cell keys and the Smith & Wesson tactical pen, military and police edition, Hardie felt armed and crazy enough to try it.
An honest-to-God jailbreak.
He quickly made his way back down to the main floor, an excitement in his blood he hadn’t felt in years.
23
Bide your time. That’s what prison teaches you, if nothing else. Bide your time and everything becomes clear and you can act accordingly.
—Terence Stamp, The Limey
HARDIE SPRANG EVE first—her cell was the closest to the elevator vestibule. She had been in one of her otherworldly Zen moments. After he unlocked her mask, Eve rubbed her eyes and asked what the hell was going on—where he got the old suit and weapons. Hardie said he’d explain later, then offered her a choice of weapons: the pen or the cane. Not surprisingly, she went with the pen. Very gallant of her, Hardie thought. The old man still needed his cane.
“You know, this is probably a trap,” Eve said. “They’re going to catch us and then torture the living shit out of us.”
“Probably. You want me to lock you back up?”
Eve smiled. “Duh.”
Cameron was next. Hardie unlocked his face mask and clapped him on the shoulder.
“That shot to his spine?” Hardie said. “It worked. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” said Cameron. “Tell me, did he cry like a little bitch?”
Next they went around the corner and freed Archie, who was stark naked and seemingly unconcerned about it. Hardie found it a bit difficult to take seriously a man whose balls were swinging around like the pendulum on a grandfather clock, but so be it. Eve, who seemed immune to the posthypnotic sway of genitals, asked if he was up for this. Archie merely nodded. Good enough for Hardie.
Finally they came to the cell of Horsehead. The man was still curled up in a fetal position, never having fully recovered from his beating and electrocution of some time ago. The same thing that Hardie would have endured. His cell stank of urine because he repeatedly wet himself, having lost all bladder control. He twitched, and his hair stuck up in odd tufts here and there, stiff as dreads.
Hardie slid a key into the back of Horsehead’s mask, but nothing happened. Horsehead cursed in Italian, then tried to take the keys from Hardie. “Hang on, let me try another one.”
“Do you want to stay here?” Eve asked, pointing to the floor of his cell. “Or do you want to join us?” Pointing to the outside.
Horsehead nodded and pointed.
Yeah, he was down with the jailbreak.
Hardie tried another key, but nothing.
“We don’t have time for this,” Cameron said. “The mask stays on for now. We’ll figure it out later.”
Eve extended her hand. Horsehead, trembling, allowed himself to be pulled to a standing position. He swayed, as if intoxicated, and would have fallen back down to the floor if Cameron hadn’t grabbed him and thrown one of his beefy arms over his shoulder.
“All right, let’s go,” Archie said.
“Wait,” Eve said. “What about Prisoner Zero? We can’t just leave him.”
“Well, we can’t bloody well carry him,” Archie said. “We’ve already got two walking wounded.” Then, with glance at Hardie, “No offense.”
Hardie wanted to tell him to bloody well suck it. But Archie was right.
“We’ll have to come back for him. Victor told me that X-Ray and Yankee are in there with him. If he was telling the truth.”
“Where’s Whiskey?” Eve asked.
“No idea.”
Eve nodded. “Okay, she’s gotta be in here somewhere. So let’s sweep the outer ring, room by room, incapacitate the bastards, and take control of the prison. Lock them up in those cells.”
“And then find a way out of this hellhole,” Archie said.
“Where did you leave fuckface?” Cameron asked.
Hardie led them to the elevator room. No one was there except a still-unconscious—or faking—Ashley/Victor. Cameron knelt down beside him, touched his fingers to the guard’s wrist, then to his jugular, nodded to himself. There was a sadness to his movements, as if Victor were a longtime family dog who had suddenly turned and bitten the baby. Such a creature needed to be put down, but you did not relish the task.
“Stupid wanker,” muttered Cameron as he launched his fist into his former partner’s face. The punch was a single jackhammer blow—a white-hot blast of kinetic energy, expertly focused. If Victor had been faking, he wasn’t anymore. Cameron quickly stripped his former partner of his brown uniform.
“What are you doing?” Hardie asked.
“Camouflaging myself,” Cameron said. “I take the lead, maybe the outfit fools ’em. Buy us a second or two of time.”
The door to the break room was locked, but Hardie still had the keys from Victor’s chain.
“Let me,” Cameron said, holding out his hand.
Hardie hesitated, but knew it was right to hand them off. His left hand was still unreliable. Last thing he needed was to drop the damned keys.
The ragtag strike force gathered by the door: Cameron in the lead, Archie behind him, followed by Eve and Hardie, and, bringing up the rear, on his hands and knees now because he couldn’t support his own body weight—Horsehead.
Hardie nudged Eve. “What about him?”
“We’ll come back for him.”
The odds: not great. What, three and a half tired, beaten prisoners versus three guards with weapons? Eve had a pen, and Hardie had his cane. That was it. Hardie even felt vaguely guilty about hanging on to it. The one true weapon should be put into the hands of the most able-bodied prisoner. In this case, Archie.
“You want this?” Hardie asked, showing him the cane.
But the man shook his head and showed them his balled-up fists. “These are all I need.”
Cameron slid a key into the door, nothing. Tried another. Nothing. The third time, however, was the charm: a beep sounded, and the door clacked open. Cameron slipped inside the room, and—
“YEAGGGHHHHH!”
A horrible, inhuman scream as an insane amount of voltage ripped through his body.
The guards had been waiting for them.
That was because the Prisonmaster had informed Yankee and X-Ray that a jailbreak was in progress, that Victor had betrayed them, had given his former partner his keys and the uniform. He told Yankee, in English:
“This is the most dire threat we’ve ever faced, Yankee, and I’m counting on you to set things right.”
He told X-Ray, in German:
“This is the most dire threat we’ve ever faced, X-Ray, and I’m counting on you to set things right.”
He also told Yankee:
“You can trust X-Ray for the time being, but keep an eye on him. You’re the only one I know I can trust. I’m counting on you to uncover the betrayers.”