Directly behind them stood a back room of the Powerhouse, where the large boiler tanks were located.
Shoemacher turned his back into the wind, and his jacket caught the gust, ballooning out around him. “That water’s gonna be a bitch. Sure we can do this?”
“We aren’t going back, I can tell you that much. I’m not going back. You want to, your choice.”
“Hell no.”
“Then I’m gonna get out of the wind and start blowing up the gloves.” MacNally took both sacks and stepped into the boiler room. “Watch out for patrols.”
MacNally dropped to his knees and pulled out the raincoat devices he had sewn. As he put the first glove to his mouth, he heard a man shout.
“Hold it! Don’t move-put your arms behind your head and get down on your knees.”
MacNally knew that voice. Officer Jack Taylor. He instantly broke out in an aggressive sweat. His heart started racing, and he nearly whimpered anger and frustration into the night air. But he fought to keep his emotions muted.
What to do?
“Where’s MacNally?” Taylor yelled.
“Who?” Shoemacher asked.
“Don’t fuck with me, boy. You’re in a whole lotta trouble.” A second’s hesitation, then, “MacNally! Where the hell are you?”
Taylor’s voice rode away on the wind, but MacNally knew he did not have much time. Taylor was only feet away, on that sloping cement slab where he had been standing only a minute ago.
Could he reason with Taylor, explain why he was doing this? No-hacks have a job to do, and that’s to keep prisoners in line and prevent them from doing what MacNally was attempting to do.
There was no way out. If he surrendered, he would be thrown back in the Hole. Dozens of years would be added to his sentence. When he did get out of Seg, he would likely not be granted work privileges again. The thought of a lifetime behind bars in a cell, twenty-four hours a day, some of it in darkness with little human contact… It was not something he could live with. He had nothing to lose.
MacNally slipped his hand inside the sack and pulled out the knife, then straightened up and put his back to the doorway. He heard Taylor key his radio.
And that’s when he struck.
MacNally stepped out of the room and plunged the knife into Taylor’s chest. The officer stiffened, dropped his handgun, released his radio, then looked at MacNally with wide eyes. Shock or fear, MacNally couldn’t tell.
Taylor fell to his knees, gasping for breath, his hands grappling with the knife handle, unable to generate enough strength to pull it from his body. He fell onto his side and went still.
“The fuck did you do?” Shoemacher’s disbelief was as genuine as Taylor’s had been. “Are you out of your mind?”
Perhaps. And perhaps not. As Voorhees had once told him, life was about choices, and he had just made one. Good or bad, he didn’t yet know, for his goal of reuniting with Henry was something that he valued above all else. It was all that mattered. But righting the wrongs he had done-including the one lying at his feet-that would have to be reconciled at a later date.
There was, however, one thing that could not wait for future evaluation and analysis. And that was the man standing five feet away: Reese Shoemacher. MacNally was amped up, huffing rapidly, puffing vapor into the chilled wind, which whipped its away around his neck. He reached down and lifted Taylor’s.38 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver from the ground.
Shoemacher had gone into the room to grab his flotation device. As he stepped back onto the Caponier, he said, “You’ve lost it, man. I’m gettin’ out of here.”
“I didn’t have a choice,” MacNally said. “I’m not going back.” He stepped closer to his partner and pulled the trigger, sending a round into the man’s chest. And another. Shoemacher slumped forward, then fell face forward to the cement.
There could be no witnesses to Taylor’s murder. If the failed escape of ’46 that Clarence Carnes had related was an indicator of what would be done to him, should he and Shoemacher be caught, MacNally’s killing of an officer would surely earn him a trip to San Quentin’s gas chamber across the Bay.
MacNally’s eyes darted around at the two bodies. He had to cover his tracks.
Fingerprints.
Then get the hell out of here.
He pulled the denim shirt out of his khakis and wiped the knife handle clean. Then he dragged Shoemacher’s stilled body toward the weapon, pressed the man’s fingers around it, and then did the same with the revolver, using Taylor’s right hand. Need be-and he hoped it didn’t come to this-his story was set in motion, and it would be bolstered by the evidence: MacNally was in the Powerhouse room preparing their plunge into the water when Taylor surprised Shoemacher, they struggled, and Taylor got off a couple of shots as Shoemacher plunged home the knife.
MacNally ran back into the Powerhouse and finished inflating his flotation device. He stepped out-and saw an officer. He reached back to throw a punch, but was struck from behind with a crushing blow to the head. It stung-his hearing winked out-and his vision went momentarily blank. MacNally went down hard to his knees.
“The fuck have you done?” a voice yelled.
“He killed Jack.”
“Son of a bitch. Who is it?”
“Negro’s Shoemacher. This asshole’s 1577. MacNally.”
MacNally shook his head, then cricked his neck to get a look at the men who were standing over him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a shoe moving toward his face. He threw up a hand, but missed. The foot did not.
The first kick to his head knocked him onto his back. The next one, and the ones after that, seemed progressively further away, the pain growing duller and more distant.
Until, eventually, he felt nothing at all.
63
Vail looked at Dixon. “Okay. John William Anglin. That’s great.” She looked sideways at Burden. “Who the hell’s John William Anglin?”
“You never heard of John Anglin?” Agent Yeung asked.
Detective Carondolet cleared his throat. “John Anglin was one of the three men who escaped from Alcatraz back in ’62. But their bodies were never found. The debate has raged for decades as to whether or not they made it. According to the FBI, they were assumed dead.”
“Well,” Vail said. “We all know what happens when you assume.”
Carondolet frowned. “Marshals Service still has active case files on these guys.”
Vail hiked her brow. “Looks like they can close one of them.”
“So,” Dixon said. “John Anglin. Fifty years or so later, he ends up right where he started. Just a guess, but I’ll bet this was his cell.”
Vail turned to look at the victim. “The UNSUB must’ve had some kind of beef with Anglin. He brought him back to Alcatraz as a gigantic fuck you-you worked so hard to get out of here, I’m going to lock you up in here-and this is where you’re going to die. He got the last word. It took him a while, but he finally got even. We figure out who Anglin pissed off before he left Alcatraz, and we may have our offender.”