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Mac and Daniel were escorted into a holding cell downtown after giving over belts, shoes and everything in their pockets. Mac had already given Rodriguez his gun, wallet and keys, so he had little to check in. They accepted their Croc-style sandals and put them on. Black ones, a step up from the orange ones he’d worn the last time. Mac was still shirtless, so they gave him a T-shirt to wear. No orange jumpsuit either. What a shame.
Daniel was shaking. Nerves and exhaustion, Mac figured. And fear. Hard to blame him. Mac was guessing he hadn’t been inside before. He needed to ask him that. He needed to know a lot more about this man who was now the center of an explosive story.
He winced at the word explosive. A metaphor, he told himself firmly. We will not blow shit up.
The two were escorted into a cell with two sets of bunk beds and a toilet in the corner. Standard issue jail. He’d heard someone liken it to being incarcerated in a bathroom — with a roommate.
“Take a top bunk, get some sleep,” Mac said. Daniel obeyed.
“How do we turn the lights off?” he asked.
“We don’t,” Mac replied. “It never gets dark in a jail. And just in case you didn’t know, that’s a camera in the corner. We’re being monitored.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?” Daniel asked.
“Yeah,” Mac said. It was a lie, but not one that was going to bother him. Mac stretched out on the bottom bunk in the stack across from Daniel’s bunk. He was going on 24 hours without sleep. During that time he’d been threatened by drug dealers who had broken into his home, had a dirty cop pull a gun on him, and another sharpshooter cop shoot at him.
Hell of a day, bro, he mocked himself.
And he wouldn’t be getting any sleep now, not if he could help it.
Janet had promised to call Michael Leatherstocking, the newspaper’s attorney. Daniel needed an attorney to negotiate on his behalf. Leatherstocking was the best there was.
Daniel’s phone was in an evidence safe in Lorde’s office. “Not in the evidence cage,” Mac had warned, referring to the rooms where evidence was stored. Lorde had looked at him sourly as if he found the reminder insulting, but Mac wasn’t going to trust rule-followers to think strategically. Not after tonight. Well, that nothing new, actually. He’d never trusted the rule-followers. It was why he’d been put into a recon team. And received notations for solves problems creatively — not commendations, just observations. The Marines didn’t like ‘creative problem solving’ any more than the Seattle PD did. But at least the Marines knew men like him had a time and place. Takes a thief to catch a thief wasn’t just a movie theme, after all.
So until Leatherstocking arranged a meeting with Daniel, and then with Lorde, here they were, in ‘protective custody.’ Mac worried briefly about Angie. He’d asked Naomi to keep her there — he hadn’t had time to fix their front door. She’d agreed. Apparently Rand was staying too — Rand and the Burmese guy. Mac still didn’t know his name.
Angie was safe, he reassured himself. Everyone was as safe as he could make them. Now he just had to keep Daniel and himself safe.
You chose this, Mac reminded himself. He could have handed Daniel over to Lorde and Rodriguez and gone home. And a good part of him had wanted to. Still wanted to. Truth was, he didn’t know why he was so protective of this man. The man was a low-level crooked bartender, who wasn’t even smart enough to delete evidence from his own phone.
“Why didn’t you delete the photos?” Mac asked. He was pretty sure Daniel wasn’t asleep.
“I dunno,” Daniel said, sounding surprised, as if it hadn’t occurred to him. “I don’t delete photos from my phone, usually. Do you?”
Mac frowned. He didn’t think he had ever used his phone to take a photo. He thought about that for a while. No, he decided. He’d never taken a photo with his phone. He carried a small point-and-shoot camera for that. It could do simple video too. Anything more complicated than that, he called Angie. Hell, he hadn’t even carried a phone until Janet had insisted two years ago. He wasn’t going to admit being that much of a technophobe — Shorty’s word for it, when he was being charitable.
“No,” Mac said at last. “I guess I don’t.”
“And I guess it seemed like they might be a good thing to have,” Daniel said slowly. “But mostly, I tried not to think about it. I told myself it was just another thing I carded some people for. I’m not the smartest kid in class, Mac, but I knew telling McBride ‘no’ wasn’t going to fly.”
And so he’d kept the photos as insurance, Mac interpreted. Or maybe as defiance. Daniel was right, though. Oh, he could have said no at first, but it probably seemed harmless then. Just a businessman with a new marketing technique for new customers. Weird, but Daniel was a bartender. Probably didn’t even make it into his top 10 of weird shit people did. But the day McBride showed up, he really had run out of options. He might have been able to pull the clueless stunt that Sherry Grant had done inadvertently. But he would have had to think fast and do it the first time he was approached. And Daniel Garvey wasn’t a fast thinker — he’d known him all of four hours and he knew that much. After that, his only possible answer was yes.
Needs a keeper, Mac thought. Guess he’d volunteered. A memory of another Daniel popped into his head. Danny Brown. And yes, the two men had more in common than just a name — although this Daniel lacked the hillbilly accent and non-stop talking, Mac sighed. Well, shit. He had to stop adopting every clueless man who reminded him of the teammate he couldn’t save.
He set that insight aside. Maybe self-reflection was good for you in the right time and place, but now wasn’t a good time. He knew they would come for him here. And he was so very tired. Dangerous. Reflexes got slow when you went without sleep.
“When did you say McBride first approach you?” Mac asked, then regretted it. They really shouldn’t discuss it here. He didn’t see being monitored in quite the same light Daniel had.
“Four years ago? We’d just had a baby, and he’s four.”
A long-running scam, then. Mac wished he had a notebook to jot down who to call. He needed to check in with Judge Moore. He’d like to talk with her daughter. She might know more about the timeline than she realized.
The lights flickered. Mac tensed. Then they went off, all but the foot lights in the hallway outside the cell.
“I thought you said they don’t go off?” Daniel whispered.
Mac rolled out of his bunk and crouched by the foot of it, next to the door.
“Hush,” Mac told him, while he listened for someone coming. He heard the door to the cell block open, and then the quick march of footsteps, made soft by the rubber-soled shoes most law enforcement wore. Just one person? That wasn’t protocol.
“Come out of there, with your hands where I can see them,” a voice ordered. The guard had stopped just shy of the cell so that Mac couldn’t see him. Did the voice sound familiar? Mac thought he had heard it before, Donovan? “Power outage. We’re going to have to move you to general population.”
“We’re fine right here,” Mac said. He stopped Daniel’s move to obey with a raised hand. Daniel subsided back into his bunk. Good boy, he thought, and wanted to snicker.
“No can do,” the jailer said. “We’re coming in to cuff you. Don’t fight, or it will only be worse for you.”
“Call Lieutenant Rodriguez or Captain Lorde,” Mac said loudly — he wanted the monitor to pick it up. He didn’t give a rat’s ass if the guard did it or not.
“Isn’t it cute you think you can give the orders here,” the man mocked. “Hands on the top of your head, Davis. I’m told you know how this works. You too, Garvey.”
“Call Rodriguez or Lorde,” Mac repeated, saying the words slowly and evenly.
“We’ll come in with tasers, if we have to, Davis.”
Mac didn’t say anything. He wasn’t going with this guard anywhere. Was there just the one? That would be stupid — and a violation of policy. But he thought he was alone. Mac waited.
“Now!” the guard shouted. Mac smiled then. Fear. Nothing like it. Finest adrenaline rush in the world was to know you’d made your enemies afraid. Be very afraid, Mac thought viciously.
The lights flickered again. “What are you going to do now?” Mac said softly. “Time’s up. You came in here alone, thinking we’d follow your orders. Shame on you. You should have asked around. You would have learned that I don’t follow orders very well. So now, here you are, alone. Time is running out. Someone figured out the lights are off. And you’re facing a former Marine and a bouncer from a bar. You’re going to come in here alone, are you?”
The lights came on.
There was silence in the hallway. Mac thought he could hear footsteps moving away from the cell. Daniel started to say something, but Mac waved him off again.
Mac laid back down on his bunk. They’d come again, he thought. And next time they wouldn’t screw it up.
***
The problem with dealing with the most wanted attorney in town is that they didn’t need to answer your call at 5 a.m. on a Saturday morning, Janet thought. Not even when you were the news editor of a newspaper, and an old friend.
If attorneys had friends. Janet considered that, as she redialed Leatherstocking’s private cell number. I know where you live, she thought, and I’m not the least bit reluctant to go roust you out of bed. He picked up on her second tap of the redial button.
“Damn it, Janet,” he growled. “It is 5 a.m. on a Saturday!”
“Do attorneys have friends?” Janet asked, because she really did wonder.
There was silence. “You didn’t just wake me up to ask that, did you?” he asked, slowly but with increasing incredulousness.
Janet laughed. “Well, no,” she said. “But I do wonder. Mac’s in jail.”
“Well of course he is,” Leatherstocking said with a sigh. “What for this time?”
Janet wasn’t completely sure, actually, but she could still write a news story with the best of them. She gave him the highpoints.
There was silence. “Michael?” she said uncertainly.
He snorted. “Meet me at the jail at 7.”
“That’s a long time,” Janet said, more of an observation than a protest.
“It will take time for them to book them in, Janet. Do you really think they’re in danger?”
Janet considered that. “Mac does,” she said finally.
“Or favorite paranoid sociopath?” Leatherstocking said sardonically. He sighed. “Well, he’s not often wrong. Make it 6 a.m. And call Rodriguez. Make sure he or his boss is going to be there.”
“Thank you,” Janet said gratefully.
“It will be on the bill,” he assured her, then he paused. “It is being billed to the paper, right?”
“It is,” she said. “I already sent an email to the bosses — Mac and a confidential news source.” She didn’t tell him she hadn’t gotten an answer. Of course not — it was 5 a.m. on a Saturday morning. But probably Leatherstocking knew that.
“Is that what the poor schmuck is?” Leatherstocking asked rhetorically, and then answered his own question, “Well, if it gets me paid, I’ll go with it.”
Janet ended the call and rolled her shoulders to release the stress there. “I take it he said yes?” Stan asked, coming over to massage her shoulders. She sighed with relief.
“He did,” she said. “He finds Mac interesting.”
Stan snorted. “That’s one word for it.”
“Is Mac right?” she asked. “Is Daniel in danger?”
Stan sighed. “After what we saw on that laptop?” he asked. “Yes, he’s in danger. But, Janet, that shot wasn’t aimed at Daniel. McBride was going after Mac.”
“Are you sure?”
Stan nodded. “Mac told me he’d gotten some info out of the sniper. Apparently the Burmese agents bought a contract on him with McBride. McBride bungled it out at the reservoir. And now he’s bungled it again. It’s Mac I’m worried about.”
Janet got dressed as she listened to him. “Are you coming with me?” She had gotten all of two hours of sleep — she wasn’t sure why she’d bothered getting into bed at all.
“I need to track down Bill Noble,” he said. “And I’m not insane enough to try to do that at 0-dark-30 on a Saturday morning.”
She smiled. “I bet your phone will work from the corrections center,” she said. “Please?”
Stan took a deep breath and let it out. “You owe me,” he said, and he got up too.
“I’m good for it,” she said, grinning at him. He laughed.
Stan drove, so that meant she could sit and brood. “Has Rand gotten confirmation from the Burmese agent that he is the one who put out a hit on Mac?” she asked finally.
“No,” Stan said. “These kinds of negotiations take time. And Myint is an experienced diplomat for all that he’s still not 30. He knows this is the best opportunity for him to get anything from us. So Rand is building rapport, establishing trust, all of those things — you should know, same thing a reporter does with a difficult interview.”
“Except we do it in 10 minutes or less,” Janet said wryly. Stan glanced at her and laughed.
“Maybe we should sic you on him.”
“Maybe you should,” she said. “Was Myint’s picture in the database?”
Stan winced. “I didn’t look — just saw that there were a whole lot of files that got downloaded.”
Janet shrugged. “And they’re a mess,” she agreed. “ID cards mixed in with pictures of his kids — cute kids, by the way.”
“Careful,” Stan warned, as he pulled into the parking garage. “I’m sure he is a nice guy with a lovely family. He also participated in a kick-back scheme for dirty cops for years.”
“Just say it,” she muttered. “Bleeding-heart liberal is the phrase you’re looking for.”
Stan snickered and gave her a hug as they walked in the entrance.
But the news they got from Rodriguez inside took away all of their good-natured talk. “They’ve locked the holding cells down,” Rodriguez said. “Power outage — the lights keep flickering. They’ve called for an electrician. No one goes in or out.”
Janet watched the two men exchange glances. She knew what that meant — bad news that they didn’t want to share with her. “Spill it,” she ordered. And it was a measure of the bonds from Parker House that Nick did.
“The locks to the unit are electronic,” he said reluctantly. “The doors shut down. No one is going inside. Not until the electrician gets here.”
“Stupid way to build something,” Janet muttered as all of the pitfalls flashed before her eyes. Had the fire marshal approved such a thing? “What were they thinking?”
“They plan buildings and security to keep people in, not let them out,” Rodriguez said.
“How many cells are affected?” she asked.
“Six. But only three are occupied.” He hesitated, and then he started to add something, but shook his head. “Come on, pretend you’re his aide. We’ll talk in the conference room.”
“What about the monitors?” she asked as they walked toward the bullpen.
“They worked at first, but they aren’t working now,” Rodriguez replied. “That’s how I got here — one of the people in the bullpen heard Mac say call Rodriguez or Lorde. And she knows me. So she called. But then the lights came back on — for a while. When the electricity went out again 10 minutes later, it was broader. The monitors are down too.”
“This didn’t just happen, Nick,” Stan said coldly. “Someone did this.”
Nick nodded. “I think someone is in there with them,” he said quietly. “And I think the cell doors were unlocked first.”
“From the top,” Janet ordered.
Nick blew out a long breath before replying. “Sorry, I’m doped up on muscle relaxants,” he admitted. “Mac’s instincts are good — that bullet could have been for me. There have been threats. But I don't bounce like I once did. So Anna came and got me and doped me up to get the spasms to stop. I’m just grateful I didn’t need to be shoved into the ambulance like that young cop did.”
“How is he?” Janet asked.
“He’s got some major rehab work ahead of him,” Nick said. “It hit his shoulder blade. I’d reassure him that the SPD disability insurance is pretty good, but I doubt he’d appreciate it.” He looked at Janet for a moment. “Off the record?”
She nodded.
“He’s talking,” Nick said. “That’s where Lorde is, and why I’m here, when I can barely focus. The guy says Mac will vouch for him. Is that true, you think?”
“If Mac told him he’d vouch for him, he meant it,” Janet agreed.
“Well, we’ve got another of them. The Black cop that Rand walked back to the house pulled Lorde aside, and said he wanted to turn state’s evidence. He’s at the hospital too — Mac put a bullet in his leg. And he wants an attorney who isn’t with the union.” Rodriguez’s smile was almost feral at that. “He said Mac told him to.”
“Sounds like you should have hired Mac to do the investigation,” Stan said dryly.
“You told me you tried to hire him once,” Nick countered. “How did that go for you?”
Janet snickered. Mac had been insulted by the offer, to put it charitably. Mac didn’t think highly of the idea of being with the FBI — or law enforcement in general. “Go on,” she said. “So you’ve got two cops turning state’s evidence, both in the hospital with Lorde — maybe we should figure out a way to put this bartender in a bed next to them. And you’re on your way home to well-deserved pain meds. Where’s Dunbar?”
“Dunbar brings the shooter down here, and gets him locked up,” Rodriguez continued. “And then he’s dispatched up to north precinct, because they’re short-handed. Abrams put some of his men on leave, one is in jail, two are in the hospital, and Lorde collected badges and guns of three. All told I think they’re down 10 officers. And no one knows where McBride is. He left the scene during all the turmoil — took the unmarked.”
Janet gestured with her head toward the cell block and raised an eyebrow.
“Don’t know,” Rodriguez admitted, and Janet could tell the thought had occurred to him too. “But I do know that the shooter is in one of those cells.”
“So the lights flicker,” Janet said, getting them back on track.
“And then they go out,” Rodriguez picked up the story. “Come on, you can listen to the recording of that part.”
“What is going on in there now?” Janet asked.
“No one knows,” Rodriguez said. He was leaning pretty heavily on his cane, and probably shouldn’t be here at all. Janet didn’t say anything. “The lights came back on — someone flipped a switch, I gather. But then they go back out, and this time the monitors go down too.”
Janet absorbed that fact. “How long ago?”
“I got here about 30 minutes ago,” Rodriguez said.
“Mac has been playing cat and mouse with a sniper for 30 minutes?” Stan said incredulously. “Get that damned door open, Nick!”
“They’re trying,” Nick said, and he sounded tired. “The good news is that no one has heard a shot in there.”
“Would they be able to hear one?” Janet asked. “I thought you needed the monitors to hear what was going on because the blocks are sound-proof.” They’d have to be, she thought, or otherwise the prisoners would raise a ruckus all the time.
“I don’t know,” Rodriguez admitted.
“But you think there’s more than just the sniper?” Janet pursued.
“Yeah,” Rodriguez said. “I think the officer that talked to Mac and backed down when Mac wouldn’t come out is in there and probably brought in reinforcements.”
“Anyone else?” Janet asked. “You said three cells were full.”
“Two drunks picked up for harassing a tourist downtown,” Nick said. “Poor schmucks.”
Rodriguez played the recording of the first lights-out encounter. Janet ran her hand through her hair. “I don’t think the officer is McBride,” she said. “Mac is playing to the monitor — and he’d recognize McBride’s voice. He spent all evening with him, right? He would have called him out by name.”
“True,” Rodriguez said thoughtfully. “So McBride is loose in the world, and we’ve got an unknown in there?” He thought about it, then shrugged.
There was a tap on the conference door, and a woman in a uniform stuck her head in. “Electrician’s here,” she said. “And so is a Michael Leatherstocking. He asked for you.”
Rodriguez looked at Janet sourly. “You had to drag him into this?” he asked. Leatherstocking wasn’t beloved by cops, not even the good ones.
“Only the best,” Janet replied.
Rodriguez sighed and went to fetch the attorney.
Janet looked at Stan. “What do you think?”
Stan looked grim. “They were planning to move the two of them into gen pop,” he said. “Probably separate them, and then make a run at Daniel as the easier target. Mac didn’t let that happen.”
Janet considered what he didn’t say. “So the officer backed away, went for reinforcements?”
Stan nodded.
“Well, fuck,” she said. Mac was right. Sometimes no other word would do.
***
Mac didn’t figure they had a whole lot of time before they tried again. The jail staff would be putting calls out — maybe even to Rodriguez or Lorde. So the guard would be back.
And he was so damned tired.
“Mac?” Daniel asked softly. “Would general population be that bad?”
Yes, Mac thought. Well, not for him, but for Daniel, it would. “They want to separate us,” Mac told him.
“And come for me? Or for you?”
Good point. “Probably for both us,” Mac said slowly. “That sniper shot was intended for me. But they aren’t going to let you testify, Daniel.” He hesitated. “Are you sure your wife is safe? Don’t tell me details,” he added quickly. “Just think. Are you sure?”
Daniel paused. “Yes,” he said. “If she went — and we’ve talked about this — yes.”
That was good. “Then you just have to focus on staying alive,” Mac said. “And your best bet to do that, is to hunker down behind me.”
“You told him you’re Marine recon,” he said.
“I was,” Mac said. Then he heard something and raised his hand for silence again. What had he heard?
Then he knew. That click was the electronic lock. They’d unlocked the cell door. Probably unlocked the exit door too. They were preparing to come back in.
Who else was in this cell block? Mac considered that. These were holding cells — should be people picked up tonight, and on a Friday night, that should be drunks. Noisy, aggravating drunks. But it had been quiet. So they were probably in a block of cells that weren’t needed tonight. Made sense. But Mac was sure there were others in here. He didn’t know how he knew, but he knew. There was no one in the two cells he could see across from them. He eyed the cell across the aisle.
Mac slid off the bunk, and put his pillow under the thin blanket, and rolled it up against the wall. “Daniel?” he said softly. Daniel peered over the edge of his bunk. Mac gestured at what he’d done, and Daniel nodded and quickly did the same.
Daniel jumped down from his bunk, landing lightly on his feet. Mac motioned with his head, and the man joined him, crouching down by the corner of Mac’s bunk.
The lights went out.
All of the lights this time, even the ones in the hallway. There were shouts down the aisle — so he’d been right, there were drunks in here. “What the fuck?” one of them shouted. “Turn the lights back on!”
“Shut up,” Mac said coldly. “Do you hear me? You will be silent, and stay in your bunks, or so help me, I’ll gut you with my bare hands.”
“Who the hell are you?” the drunk demanded.
“Yes, sir,” his cellmate said over the top of him. “Shut it, Tom. I know a Marine sergeant when I hear one.”
It made Mac snicker. “Good man, soldier,” Mac approved. “Just stay down and quiet, and ride it out.”
Suddenly he realized who else had to be in here tonight — the sniper. What had Terrell called him? Benson. He didn’t know if that was a first or last name. He didn’t hear anything from him, however. So this hadn’t come as a surprise.
Mac tapped Daniel on the arm. Felt him nod. He eased his hand through the bars of the cell and pulled on the door. It opened. Bingo. He had heard the click of the electronic lock earlier.
It was pitch black. Big mistake, Mac thought. When they came after him, they’d have to have flashlights. He’d know where they were.
Really it was now like a shell game. There were six cells, three starting out as empty. One filled and stationary — Mac hoped to God the drunks had that much sense at least to just stay put.
Mac was going to make the guards hunt him.
He tapped Daniel on the arm again, and ran across the aisle, staying low. Once there, he made Daniel get on the floor and under one bunk stack. Daniel obeyed. Mac considered that. Would they spray the floor with bullets? He visualized the angles from the aisle. Even if they did, he didn’t think they’d hit him.
It was the best he could do under the circumstances.
Now where was the sniper?
Mac left the cell door open, just as he had their original cell. He didn’t want to be trapped in any cell, much less the wrong one, when the power came back on.
He settled in the empty cell next to the one Daniel was in — the one next to the door to the unit. It had taken all of 30 seconds to move the players around. All right, motherfuckers, he thought coldly. Come and get me.
He heard the interior exit door open. There were two doors with a small vestibule between them. Guards brought someone into that area, the door locked behind them. They could search the prisoner, there, and then the monitors outside opened the interior door and the guard could bring the prisoner on inside the block.
And of course, the exit worked the same way. Mac figured they had entered the vestibule while electricity still worked. The outer door was locked behind them, and they had pushed open the interior door just a crack — enough that it didn’t lock them in. And now they controlled the block.
Or they thought they did.
Where was the sniper?
Maybe the real question was, is the sniper armed? Mac considered that. The escorting jailer could have slipped him a billy club, Mac thought, but nothing more than that. Mac smiled. So maybe there was a weapon in here. If the game went on long enough, he’d check.
But opening gambit first.
“Come forward to the door, hands in front of you,” an officer ordered.
Mac heard the two drunks obey. They were grumbling, but it sounded like they were standing at the bars of their cell. “Get us out of here!” one drunk said. “It’s getting stuffy. Can you feel it?”
One of the guards used his billy club to bang on the bars of the first cell — a cell that had originally been empty and still was.
“Benson!” he called out. “Where are you?”
“Same cell the guards put me in,” the cop said sourly. “And I’m staying in it too.”
Mac homed in on which cell that was — now he had all the occupied cells mapped out in his head. Good.
“Sarge is counting on your support here,” the guard said. “Do you want me to tell him you wimped out?”
“Tell him whatever you want,” Benson said. “I’m not playing cat and mouse with a Marine recon — in the dark? Are you kidding me?”
Mac grinned.
Really a lot of Marine training was just like this — an adult form of paintball. He wondered if Angie would like paintball — maybe laser tag. It wasn’t as messy.
War, on the other hand, got messy. Literally and figuratively. Paintball with live ammo. He thought about Andy Malloy’s bootcamps for his middle-class wannabes and shook his head. He didn’t get it — either enlist and do it right, or stay home and play computer games.
“Come on Davis — you too, Garvey. Out of those beds,” the guard ordered. He flashed his light up at the bunks, then banged on the bars of the cell Mac was supposed to be in.
“Jesus, Pete,” Guard 2 said with disgust. “They aren’t coming down without us going in after them. Benson might be right — this is a damn-fool exercise. Should have just waited until they went before the judge, and then got them into gen pop.”
“Have to move fast before they talk to Lorde, right?” Guard 1 answered. “Sarge said.”
“Yeah, well he’s not here, is he?” Guard 2 said sourly.
Mac waited. Guard 1 opened the cell door the rest of the way. “Well?” he demanded. “Get in here. They’re still sleeping — we’ve got the jump on them. I’ll grab whoever is in the top bunk — you get the one in the bottom bunk.”
Mac waited for someone — Benson? — to tell the guards they hadn’t been asleep minutes ago. But the guards were talking softly, and if anyone heard them, they didn’t volunteer information. And the drunks were still hollering about needing to get out of here. Really he couldn’t ask for better cover.
Mac watched the movement of the flashlights — they told him all he needed. The guards weren’t even going to check the lumps with their flashlights. If these were his men in a drill, he’d have their ears for being such stupid shits.
He heard Guard 2 step inside the cell. Mac listened. He really didn’t think there was a third guard in here, but it paid to check. And then he slid across the floor and kicked the door shut. He heard it click.
“What the hell?” one of the guards muttered and grabbed the door to open it. Mac moved so that he was standing beside the door, his back to the cell, just out of reach of where a flashlight beam would reveal him. Those flashlights didn’t have a wide beam in the first place. He watched the cell over his shoulder.
“Pillow,” the other guard said with disgust. “They’re not in here.”
Benson cackled.
“Shut up!” Guard 2 shouted at him. Mac smiled, the dark was getting to him.
The Marines had called Mac ‘Shadow.’ Well, it was an older nickname than that, really. But Shadow could move silently, blending in with the shadows, hiding in plain sight. It was about keeping your body quiet —breathing even, no twitchy body movements. Mac was astounded at how hard it was for most people to truly be still.
He was still now, his breathing slow and easy, no body movements.
“Come open the door!” the guard told Benson.
“Open it yourself,” Benson told him. “They walked out of it, didn’t they?”
The guard shoved at the door. “It won’t open!”
Mac waited. Has to be opened from the outside, bro. Get a clue. Now both of them were at the door, rattling it. He grimaced. He’d hoped they would come out one at a time, and he’d grab one of them. But those flashlights worried him.
So he slipped away from his position at the wall, and across the aisle to the empty cell next to the exit. He ran his hand across the bars, and shook them a bit, before ducking down the aisle toward the cell where Daniel was. He dodged around that open door, and then crouched down to go past the sniper’s cell to the end of the block. If Benson knew he was there he didn’t say anything.
“Who did that?” Guard 1 asked angrily.
“It came from the left,” Guard 2 said slowly. “Between us and the exit.”
“Well open this door and get us out of here,” Guard 1 ordered.
“You do it,” Guard 2 said with exasperation.
One of them shook the bars of the door again.
Mac slid down the wall, so that he was sitting on the floor. He could see the entire cell block from here. And opposite him was the exit door. He wondered if it was open. Possibly, he conceded. But probably only the interior door. And unlike the cell doors, you couldn’t slip your hand through and push down the latch. You’d be trapped in between the double doors.
It would be hilarious to walk out of here, though.
He considered what he could do next. Freaking these two guards out was kind of fun — if you were as sleep-deprived as he was. But he half-expected these idiots to fire a weapon. What was their end game, here? Were they intending to kill him and Daniel here? And then what? Walk out into the arms of those who were probably working diligently to get the electricity back on?
When you thought about this, it didn’t really make much sense. When Donovan had come in the first time planning to move them to gen pop — that he’d understood. But this?
He was wrong about that. They shouted again for Benson to come let them out. Mac just stayed still and waited.
Benson refused to try. “I warned you,” he said. “I’m not leaving this cell. I heard him before you came in — he told the drunks to stay put. They’re smart enough to do it. And so am I.”
“And when the power comes on?” Guard 2 demanded. “Then what?”
Mac could almost hear Benson’s shrug. “Then I suppose someone will come and let you out. What’s taking so long, anyway? You just needed long enough to justify the move right?”
Mac just hoped the person who came was one of Lorde’s men, not one of McBride’s.
“I’m gonna shoot the damned latch,” Guard 2 said, ignoring Benson’s question.
“Hell no, don’t do that,” Benson said with alarm. Mac seconded that thought. This idiot was going to fire a weapon in a closed cell block? Where did he think the bullet was going to go?
Benson sighed. “Shit, Donovan!” he said with disgust. “Just slide your hand through the bars and flip the latch — that’s what Davis did.”
Then it occurred to Mac that Donovan was supposed to be on administrative leave while his charges of attempted murder worked their way through the system. One of McBride’s hit squad — the Three Stooges. He would guess that the other ‘guard’ was either Mason or Hightower. What was the third stooge doing? A question for another time.
The two drunks were now running their hands along the bars like he had done, and chanting ‘let us out.’
He needed to move — and ratchet up the tension. Mac grinned. He flipped the latch on Benson’s cell, and slid inside. He grabbed Benson before he could call out and twisted his arm up high behind his back. “Fancy meeting you here,” he murmured quietly in the man’s ear. “Did they leave you a weapon when they tossed you in here?”
Benson said nothing. “I bet they did.” He patted the man down and found it — a knife tucked in the man’s waistband. Well, well. He’d been expecting a billy club, not a knife.
Mac took it. He balanced it on his hand, tested the sharpness. A good knife, he thought, with a five-inch blade. He laid the blade against the man’s neck. “What is the end game here?” Mac asked, honestly puzzled.
Benson shook his head. “Get the two of you in gen pop and separated,” he said. “That usually sets up the scenario they want. And that was what Donovan wanted when he first came in. But you wouldn’t cooperate. So they upped it. They were going to claim the whole block isn’t stable and move us all out. But they’ve run into a snag — it’s taking too long to get the electricity back on. I don’t know what they did to fuck that up. And now they don’t even have all the prisoners secured in their cells.”
Mac grunted. “You just might want to get back on that bunk and stay quiet,” Mac said. He let go of him and waited. Benson moved toward the bunks, and Mac went back out to the aisle.
“Where is that bastard?” Donovan asked. “He’s toying with us.”
Mac snorted. He hadn’t done much — these two clowns did it to themselves. That had been true last fall as well. About the best that could be said of them is that they were willing to follow orders. McBride’s orders. Donovan had been a part of the look-away team that allowed other police to dump bodies in north Seattle and stage them as suicides.
Mac itched to get out of here. He wanted to work that database of ID cards. Joe Conte had been right — they needed the big story that anchored the rest of it. The story that would bring home to readers the meaning of what was going on. The people involved. Readers didn’t relate to facts and figures. But they’d relate to the people — for good or for bad.
And it was all in that database.
Mac inched his way toward the two men, sliding along the wall. They were using their flashlights now — searching the cell where Mac had created noise to make them jump. But they weren’t using them correctly. They swung them wide, but not going all the way to the wall. Did they really think he was going to be standing in the middle of the aisleway?
He shook his head.
“Go toward those two in the drunk tank,” Donovan ordered Guard 1. See if the two of them are hiding behind them.”
Guard 1 grunted. Mac froze in place. When Guard 1 passed him, his flashlight illuminating the floor in front of him, Mac moved toward Donovan. Guard 1 should be using the flashlight to look around, not to show him the floor — he knew what the floor looked like, right? It wasn’t going to change on him. When the man stopped to fumble with the latch to the cell, Mac put the knife against his neck. “Freeze,” Mac said in his ear. Guard 1 held still. Mac carefully took his flashlight so that it didn’t wobble. “Very good. Undo your belt and drop it.”
Guard 1 hesitated, and Mac pressed the flat of the blade firmly against his neck. Guard 1 unbuckled his belt and let it drop to the floor.
The drunks yelped at the sound.
“What did you do?” Donovan demanded.
“Tell him nothing, just... ‘getting the door open,’” Mac instructed.
Guard 1 repeated the words.
“Shit for brains,” Donovan muttered.
Mac scooped up Guard 1’s belt with its weapons and slung it over his shoulder. “Inside,” he said, urging the man forward.
“Hey!” one drunk protested. “We don’t need more bodies in here!”
“Shut up,” the other drunk said. “Don’t make no waves, man.”
Mac backed out and closed the cell door. He focused the flashlight on it, then jammed the in the latch to keep it closed. He turned off the flashlight and slipped back into his original cell. People never thought to search a place they’d already searched.
But he seconded Benson’s question. What was taking them so long to get the lights back on?
Until then, he was sitting tight, right here. If Donovan did something drastic in response to Guard 1 being in the drunk’s cell, he’d move again. If that happened, he’d figure out what he was going to do for act 2. Besides, he had a weapon’s belt now.