TO ALL APPEARANCES, the bus was now empty, parked near an arched entryway at the prison gate. Outside, guards shoved and sorted the prisoners on a bare pavement slab. Another guard rested his rifle near the front door of the bus and started sweeping the aisle for stowaways. It was not unusual for prisoners to hide under seats, praying not to be noticed.
From her aisle seat, Maddy watched the guard’s black helmet duck down, one row after the other, all the way to the bench that ran across the rear of the bus. Maddy knew from the hum in her head that she was still invisible, still safe, but for how long? The guard walked to the front of the bus and leaned out the front door.
“Clear!” he shouted. The squad leader outside nodded.
Maddy moved down the aisle behind the guard and waited for him to exit. As he stepped down onto the ground, she followed. Suddenly, the guard wheeled around and started back up the steps to retrieve his rifle. As Maddy spun sideways to dodge him, she felt the hard ballistic nylon of his sleeve brush against her leg. She held her breath. The guard grabbed his rifle and stepped back out of the bus.
The prisoners had already been separated by gender, men to the left, women to the right. The only juvenile on this load was a boy about eleven years old, who was roughly pushed in with the men. The woman in the colorful turban stood quietly at the end of the female line. At a signal from the lead guard, the solid metal gate in front of the prisoners rose like a garage door—the eight-ton, bomb-proof variety.
Maddy slipped into the line behind the turban lady. She glanced over her shoulder to make sure the guard in the rear was maintaining a comfortable gap as the column moved forward. Stay focused. Stay calm. Don’t push it. She had already been invisible for fifteen minutes.
As the prisoners moved through the bleak prison vestibule, they passed an unmanned kiosk with an automatic camera. At a guard’s command, each prisoner turned to face the camera for his or her official mug shot. When Maddy reached the camera, the sensor saw nothing. Maddy posed anyway. She gave the lens her most charming smile, and both middle fingers.
After passing through two more electronically controlled doors, the columns of people reached the core of the prison. Everything here was metal—metal bars, metal pipes, metal ducts, metal railings, even metal floors, in the form of grated platforms that ran around cell blocks stacked three stories up. The men’s column turned left and disappeared down a long corridor. The guards herded the women toward a wide staircase.
When they reached the third level, the column halted. The guard at the rear saw something flicker right in front of him. Or thought he did. Barely a blink. He looked up at a wire-covered light fixture on the wall. He tapped it with his rifle barrel. It flickered. He shrugged. That must have been it. Either that, or he needed his eyes checked.
“Come forward!” the lead guard called out. “One at a time!”
The prisoners advanced until they were spread out along the cell row, one woman in front of each cell door.
“Open Row C!” the guard shouted.
There was a loud buzz and rattle as twenty cell doors slid open in unison. Prodded by rifles, each woman stepped into her new home.
“Close Row C!” the guard called out.
Twenty doors slid shut with a loud clang. Maddy pressed her back against the outside railing as the guards moved back past her toward the control station. She felt a tingle. None of the guards noticed her flicker this time, but she knew she had to hurry. She had a whole cell block to search.
As soon as the guards were clear, Maddy turned and slipped back down the stairs to the second level. In the cell just across from the staircase, a lone guard was flipping the mattress and banging on the window bars as the occupant stood trembling in the center of the floor.
When he finished his inspection, the guard stepped back into the corridor and shouted toward the control room.
“Close Number Twelve!”
The cell door slammed shut. Maddy stepped in behind the guard as he moved to the next cell in the row.
“Open Number Thirteen!” he called out.
The door to Number 13 rolled back. Maddy heard a rustle from inside the cell and then…a woman’s voice.
“How many times do I have to say it?” the voice said. “It’s too early for turn-down service.”
Maddy’s heart did a flip.
Grandma!