But then the drill broke past the surface of the bone and struck a tangle of nerves that shattered any notion he could endure such torment. The pain was not localized; it slammed into his whole body at once, like a thundering wave crashing onto the shore.
Nothing could have prepared him for such intense agony. His body began to tremble from head to foot. His head snapped back, and he clamped down on the rubber, desperate for relief.
“Hold still,” the doctor said. “It gets worse with time. Just try to relax.”
Danny’s jaw snapped wide and he began to scream.
32
WEDNESDAY
I WAS A bundle of raw nerves. Keith drove the rented black Ford sedan down Highway 138 toward Lone Pine Canyon Road toward Basal. He had pulled the entire plan together in fewer than forty hours and, despite the fact that it fell into place so seamlessly, I was certain we’d forgotten something.
We had identification. Getting in would all come down to our Office of the Inspector General ID badges.
Never mind that. Even if we hadn’t forgotten anything and getting into the prison proved to be as simple as we thought it could be, we were entering the lions’ den. The warden was in there. Randell was in there.
We were dressed like congressmen visiting our constituents, Keith in a dark blue suit and me in blue slacks and a white blouse.
I’d watched a documentary once about the cult leader Jim Jones, who set up a compound for his followers in Guyana called Jonestown. A congressman who had gone in to investigate rumors of abuse lost his life along with more than nine hundred temple followers.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that Basal was our Jonestown and I was that congressman.
We’d left Judge Thompson in his estate, assured of his silence and compliance. Knowing that he was complicit at some level, we told him what we wanted him to hear: someone wanted him dead, and unless he got our hands on one million dollars within forty-eight hours, we would have to at least fake his death. We would be back. There would be no contact until then, because we believed that someone was watching.
As to why Sicko wanted the judge dead, the reasoning had become obvious to us: Thompson was a loose end who knew too much to be left alive. If we killed him, we would be implicated in his murder and go to prison, which was one of Sicko’s stated objectives from the beginning. It was the perfect setup.
As to why Sicko had led me to the dancing bear, then to the warehouse with the maimed boy before leading us to the judge, the answer seemed obvious in retrospect: he was manipulating me, pushing me further and further, hoping I would snap and kill a man with my own hands.
But now we’d turned the tables on him. He didn’t know it yet, but he was now playing our game, and in that game I needed the judge alive. In fact, he was invaluable. Assuming both Danny and I survived the next twenty-four hours.
“You’re sure these IDs will work?” I asked.
Keith didn’t bother answering. He drove the sedan in silence, as he had for most of the drive north. Neither of us had slept more than a few hours since Sunday night.
He’d dyed his hair black and wore a mustache and goatee. He looked nothing like the Keith I knew. I’d found a short blonde wig and wore rectangular, wireframe glasses. True, I was still my skinny self, but Keith seemed certain that the warden wouldn’t detect us. Although he had probably seen pictures of us, he hadn’t met either of us in person, a key factor in recognition. Our alterations were simple but they would be effective, and I had to trust him on that.
“How long?” I asked.
“Five minutes.”
Honestly, most of my nervousness revolved around the thought of seeing Danny again. Would I? What condition was he in? Was he even alive? I stared at the road ahead and tried to imagine seeing him again. Would he recognize me with a wig on? What would I say?
I’d written a letter that laid it all out—everything that had happened, everything we planned. Although the judge didn’t know it yet, with his help I was going to get Danny transferred out of Basal. But first we had to keep him alive. We had to stop Randell. We had to deal with the warden. That couldn’t be done from the outside because there was too much risk of the warden being tipped off, which would send him sky-high. He’d blow up the whole prison with Danny in it. He’d become the new Jim Jones, and Basal would become his Jonestown.
The letter was folded neatly in my underwear—nothing was as important as getting it to Danny.
Keith gave me a quick glance, then returned his gaze to the road.
“What are you thinking?” I asked.
He waited a while before answering. “I was thinking that I’ve been over this a hundred times, and I’m still having a hard time believing the system would leave such a gap in their security. They must have retina scans, fingerprints—something to identify OIG deputies besides a simple ID.”
I gave him our pat answer. “Who wants to break into prison, right?”
“Yeah, but you’d think they’d have more protocols in place. What if someone wanted to break in to kill a high-value target? I know we’re not talking witnesses here, we’re talking convicted inmates. One gets knocked off and no one really cares much. Still…”
“But you trust your source,” I said, knowing the answer.
He nodded absently. “Sources. Three of them.”
Our break-in would be made possible because of the separation of power between the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the governor’s Office of the Inspector General, the investigative watchdog that had reporting authority over the way the CDCR ran the prisons. In essence, the OIG could investigate any complaints of abuse in the department of corrections. Misappropriation of funds, theft—any form of misconduct in the prison system was the OIG’s to flush out.
OIG deputies routinely showed up unannounced to audit, inspect, or investigate complaints. According to California law, any prison official’s refusal to cooperate constituted a misdemeanor. The OIG was seen by some as the governor’s Gestapo arm, the adversary, the ones who made the difficult task of controlling prison populations even harder.
But that adversarial relationship gave OIG deputies healthy respect, and we intended on tapping it. We needed only an hour inside, plenty of time to do what we needed to do and get out before any collateral damage was discovered.
There were problems, challenges that would have been impossibilities without Keith’s connections, like getting fake ID badges made quickly. And any investigation into a prison like Basal would immediately put the warden on high alert. He would watch us like a hawk.
After numerous phone calls and hours of digging, the plan that Keith landed on seemed flawless.
We would show up unannounced as two deputies dispatched from the main office in Sacramento. The warden would be familiar with regional deputies. Our papers identified us as deputies Myles Somerset and Julia Wishart. We were investigating a current well-known problem in the system: spiked milk supplied by the Prison Industry Authority. We would take random blood and urine samples from inmates, and milk samples from the kitchen. It would take only an hour and we’d be out of their hair.
The warden wouldn’t call the Sacramento office to verify our task, because doing so would cast suspicion on his motives for inserting himself into the investigation. You don’t call headquarters and demand to know why the Gestapo are checking out your prison unless you’re covering something up. He might be able to make inquiries through back channels, but it would take time. Hopefully enough for us to get in and out.
Once we were processed and inside, we had the authority to ask the staff to help us or stay clear. We would find Randell and Danny, do what we needed to do, and leave.