Jason waited for someone to take him to X, but no one came to his cell or even into the hall. The world was stillness, dark thoughts, and dead silence. Like most inmates unfortunate enough to be awake in the middle of this particular night, Jason was thinking of the execution. He knew enough to visualize the way it would go down. At eight o’clock, three corrections officers would remove X from his cell, walk him the length of death row, and down a short hall to the execution chamber, where thick, leather straps at the wrists and ankles would secure him to the chair as the final two straps crisscrossed his chest, shoulders to hips. One officer would shave his head as close to the skin as possible, as a second prepared the sponge and bucket of salt water, placing those items beside the chair. The third officer, the most senior, would adjust the headpiece to assure a proper fit and maximum conductivity. Every preliminary step was designed to further that end: the salt water and sponge, the bare skin and the cranial cap lined with copper mesh. Those steps wouldn’t take long, maybe twenty minutes.
After that, X would have to wait.
At nine o’clock exactly, blinds would be raised at two different windows, one to the outside world, letting in the new day’s light, and one to the observation room so that those present might witness the death. The warden, by then, would be in the execution chamber, and would offer X a chance for final words. Jason had no idea what X might say, only that he would be there to hear those words, and that to X, his presence would matter in powerful, complicated ways that Jason would as soon not consider. As for the other witnesses—the politicians and the families of the victims—Jason suspected that X would die as he had lived, contemptuous to the end.
After last words, the sponge would be soaked in salt water, placed on X’s bare scalp, and secured there by the cranial cap. Water would stream down his face and into his eyes; it would darken his clothing at the collar. A power cable would be attached to the headpiece, as would a dark shroud designed to conceal his face in what Jason considered the final mercy of allowing a condemned man’s last expressions of pain, fear, and despair to be his alone.
Jason had imagined the moment countless times: silence in the gathered crowd, black cloth stirring as X measured out his final breaths. When the moment arrived, 1,750 volts would pour into X’s body, lifting it, and then dropping it. Fifteen seconds later, a second jolt would be delivered, followed by a mandatory five-minute wait and a declaration of time of death.
Assuming everything goes well.
When they came for Jason, they did so in the dark. Half-blinded by a flashlight, Jason still recognized Captain Ripley. The others he thought were Jordan and Kudravetz. The core of X’s detail. Old-school. They pulled Jason to his feet, and every inch of the journey hurt.
“Get dressed.”
They gave him civilian clothes, and Jason did as he was told. They took him into the hall. Cuffs only. No chains.
“This way.”
Ripley set a fast pace, and they met no one as they moved down deserted hallways, and passed through checkpoints that would normally be guarded. That set off alarm bells, but when Jason slowed his pace, they yanked him hard by the arms. Outside, the sky was clear and dark.
Not dawn.
Not even close.
They drew him along a dim path, cellblock D emerging from the gloom.
No lights on the towers.
No movement.
With each turn, Jason ticked off places they weren’t taking him.
Not the infirmary.
Not death row.
They weren’t taking him to X, and that made the bells sing.
Ripley said, “Six minutes.”
Jason felt the tension, the new tempo. They hustled him toward the admin building, where they passed two guards, down at the gate, and bleeding. Ripley got them through, and locked the gate behind them.
“Shift change in four minutes.”
They rushed through the darkened building, found another guard down at the entrance, and two more on the inside. They moved Jason down zigzag stairs, and into a subbasement hallway that led to a concrete ramp lit by dim bulbs in rusted cages. The big guards urged him up the slope to a parking garage occupied by a single car and lots of dark corners. If Jason wanted to disappear a man, this would be a good way to do it, a quiet, clean kill, then in the trunk and gone. At the car, Ripley popped the trunk. Inside was a spare tire and a jack, a water bottle and a ratty blanket. “Get in.”
“No.”
“Get in the damn trunk.”
“You’ll have to kill me first,” Jason said.
Something primal showed on Ripley’s face. Jason might be injured, but he’d gone toe to toe with X more times than any man alive. Three guards or not, no one wanted to roll those dice. “Okay, tough guy. Back seat, but on the floor.”
“Ripley, no…”
“Shut up, Kudravetz. Get him in. Cover him up.”
Jason didn’t give an inch.
“Get in the car,” Ripley said.
“Where are you taking me?”
“We don’t have time for this.” Ripley drew a revolver Jason had not seen or suspected. Guards did not carry inside the walls. Not ever. “I’ll say please if it makes things easier.”
Jason let the fight bleed out of his limbs—no choice. They got him in the car, down deep in the shadows, beneath a blanket that smelled like mothballs and gasoline. Ripley and Jordan got in front, Ripley behind the wheel. Kudravetz took the back seat, and his face pale white as he stared down in the gloom. “Fuck this up, and you’ll kill us all.”
Ripley turned the key. The engine caught.
“Cover your face.”
Jason did, but kept enough of a gap to see a slice of concrete ceiling. The car lurched into motion, turned a tight radius, and angled up a second ramp. When it stopped, he heard steel rumble as a metal door rolled on heavy-gauge tracks. Then they were outside.
“One minute. We’re cutting this close.”
The main gate was brightly lit. Ripley spoke to a guard, and the gate ground open, so massive that Jason felt the vibration. The car rolled forward, and they were through. Jason saw treetops and firelight, then heard the rumble of the crowd. Jordan said, “Jesus, there must be a thousand of them by now.”
In seconds, bodies crowded the car, signs stabbing up and down as people yelled at the car and at each other, a wash of angry faces. Ripley intimidated with the big engine. Short lurches. Hard stops. Some backed off. Others beat on the car. When they were through, the sky opened up, and so did Ripley.
“Pursuit?”
“No.”
“Alarms?”
“Nothing yet.”
They hit the tree line, and blew through it in a boil of gravel and dust. “Kudravetz, let him up.”
Jason got off the floorboards, and held on for dear life. Too much car and not enough traction. When they reached the state road, Ripley pumped the brakes and turned left, rear end drifting until the tires caught pavement. Then it was forty miles an hour, racing fast to sixty-five and ninety. The car looked old, but had the goods where it counted: rock steady on the shocks, engine still eager as they broke a hundred, and reached out for one-ten. Kudravetz was watching him closely, and so was Jordan, both of them wary and ready for anything. Jason thought, Pagans, payback, Darius Simms. Simms was the kind to want his payback in person, to look Jason in the eyes, and say something stupid like, You shot me twice, motherfucker, and nobody does that to Darius Simms …
“How about now you tell me where we’re going?”
Ripley’s eyes flashed in the rearview. “A farmhouse. Not far.”
Wind poured through open windows, and Jason watched the dark fields and distant woods. More places to disappear a man. He ran scenarios, but none looked good. The speedometer was pegged at one-ten, and Ripley still carried that .38.
“Ten minutes.” Ripley’s eyes, again in the mirror. “Please don’t do anything stupid.”
Nothing marked the turn but a battered mailbox with catseye reflectors that glowed yellow from a hundred yards out. Ripley slowed the car, and turned onto a dirt road in an abandoned field. A hundred feet in, two four-wheel-drive vehicles were angled in to block the drive. “Take it easy, people. No surprises here.”
Where the vehicles blocked the road, two men stood on the hard, red dirt, M16s carried at the low-ready. Maybe ex-military, definitely trained. When Ripley stopped the car, one maintained his position center road as the other came to the driver’s-side window, and shone a light into the car. “Names?”
Ripley shielded his eyes, pointing in turn. “Ripley. Jordan. Kudravetz. That’s Jason French behind me.”
The light stayed on Ripley’s face for five full seconds, then swept the other faces a second time. “Any weapons in the vehicle?”
Ripley handed over the .38.
Slowly, Jason noted.
“Wait for us to move the vehicles, then proceed to the house at no more than fifteen miles an hour.” He straightened, and keyed his radio. “One car, inbound. Four men.”
He got into a Bronco, and the second man got into a Jeep, rocking the vehicles through the ditch line and off the road. Ripley drove them through the gap, and the vehicles rolled back out of the fields, blocking the drive behind them.
Not Pagans, Jason thought.
Not unless they contracted out top-dollar private security.
For a moment, he thought military brass might have sent private contractors to make sure the Bến Hải River massacre stayed well and deeply buried, that General Laughtner’s fear of exposure meant no loose threads could be left to dangle. And Jason felt very much like that loose thread. The dirt track stretched into blackness and scrub, no sign of any house. Maybe the general thought it wasn’t enough to string him out on morphine, then send him home disgraced and shot full of heroin. But that didn’t feel right, either.
Why send him home at all?
Why not have these guards kill him in a quiet, dark corner of the prison?
Ripley kept the car at fifteen miles an hour, rolled onto a low hill, and began to climb. At the top, they leveled out, and then began a shallow descent on the other side, a cluster of lights gleaming in the near distance. Closer, the scene resolved into an abandoned farmhouse lit by temporary floods and the lights of five vehicles arranged in a loose circle. The house was decrepit, abandoned. Jason spotted armed men at the corners, and in the dimness beyond the cars. Ripley pulled into the circle of headlights, and turned off the engine. “My advice,” he said, “is to move slowly.”
He tipped his head to mean, Out of the car. And Jason was fine with that. If it was a fight, he’d fight. And if it came to dying …
He opened the door, stepped out, and turned a slow circle. He’d missed the sniper on the roof, the shapes of people in some of the cars. He looked at the faces of the nearest armed men. Not one face showed a flicker. “Shoot me or talk to me.”
He wanted answers. He didn’t know a damn thing. Then suddenly he did.
A car door opened, and a man got out. “Hello, Jason.”
Jason kept a calm face, but felt something different on the inside.
Dear God, he’s out.
In the cone of bright lights, X did not look particularly dangerous, but neither would a coral snake. He seemed pleased with himself, too, still bruised and broken-toothed, but smiling modestly in a seersucker suit with calfskin loafers and a snowy shirt, open at the collar.
“May we talk?”
It sounded like a question, but it really wasn’t. Jason counted eight armed men, plus the two at the entrance.
“Please.” X gestured at the car behind him, something large, long, and brand-new. “Warden Wilson made arrangements to delay the alarm at your escape, but it will sound.”
Again, Jason ran scenarios. Four armed men were watching his every move, no fingers on the triggers, but close. The other men were turned outward, covering the drive and the cross-country approaches. No escape in any direction.
Jason got in the car. Soft leather. New-car smell. X slid in beside him, and someone else closed the door.
“Cuffs?” X showed a small key, and Jason lifted his wrists so the cuffs could be removed. When X spoke again, his voice was low and the smile was in his eyes. “I told you before that Lanesworth would not be your life.”
Jason could no longer pretend to be unfazed. “How did you do this?”
“Plans were in place to release you after the execution. I had to change those plans, so here we are together.” X gestured at a dark van, not far away. “The warden is just there, if you wish to thank him.”
Jason saw cutouts of people, more than one.
“His family,” X explained. “Unhappy, but together. They’ll disappear, as will the guards who brought you here.”
“Disappear, dead?”
“No, not disappear dead.”
The car was cool and quiet, the air conditioner running. Jason should be angry, but wasn’t. He wasn’t even afraid. Life on the run would be no day at the lake, but twelve years on gun charges would be pretty shitty, too. “Is there some kind of plan here?”
“You and I will speak. After that, we all leave.”
“You’ll just let me go?”
“I actually brought you a car.”
He pointed, but Jason wasn’t ready to go there. So many thoughts! His past, the future, all his hours in the subbasement. “You could have done this at any time?”
“Escape? Yes.”
“Why now? Why not years ago?”
X seemed suddenly uncomfortable, smoothing the front of his coat, and coughing lightly, as if to clear his throat. “Have you ever been bored, Jason, not for hours or days but so jaded and weary, so uninterested in life that you’d consider dying if only to try something new? It’s a horrible feeling, that emptiness, like a silence. I remember a time I could not conceive of such a barren existence, except as an affliction of the aged and infirm. It was simply … unimaginable.” He met Jason’s eyes, and shrugged. “It’s amazing the way life changes.”
“You’re telling me you got bored?”
“Jaded. Weary. Barren. I chose those words with care. Life was worse than bland. It was a drain. Food had no taste. Money didn’t matter. I had no reason to wake up, no desire to go to sleep. Nothing mattered.”
“What about the people you murdered?”
“They helped for a while.”
He sounded wistful. Jason wanted to kill him.
X turned so he could face Jason more directly. “You asked, once, how the police caught me. There was news coverage, as you know, and reporters did their best, I suppose. Most would say I made a series of ever-larger mistakes, that I grew arrogant or careless, or that time is the great leveler. None of those things are true.”
“You wanted it,” Jason said.
“Wanted it, facilitated it. Frankly, I was ready to die. That’s a truth I’ve never shared. It’s been the great secret, the last of my shame. It’s a relief to speak of it aloud.”
“You murdered sixty-nine people. You don’t deserve relief.”
“Not even one as small as this?”
“You should have pulled the trigger yourself.”
“Come, Jason, how often have we spoken of weakness? Suicide was never a possibility.”
“But suicide by cop was?” Jason scoffed. “Or suicide by electric chair?”
“They seemed the only options, though I have, at times, hoped you might do the honor.” Jason’s jaw dropped. X shrugged again. “It would have been a good death.”
“So why this?” He meant outside, escape. “You don’t want to die anymore?”
“Yesterday, I did. Then I found reasons to live: one man to love, another to hate, good reasons, and unexpected.”
Jason pinched the bridge of his nose. His head ached. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because some things haven’t changed. Dead or alive, the good of me or the bad, I still want an admirable man to bear witness, one who can see past the headlines and the fury. A man who knows me, and whose soul I know in return. It’s not so much to ask, is it, to be thought of on occasion, to be known and remembered?”
“I’m not your friend or your priest.”
“Nor am I in search of absolution. But you do understand me better than anyone alive, my thoughts and the things I’ve done.”
“I’m sorry. No. No way. I don’t want this. I can’t.”
Jason needed out of the car, needed to move. He opened the door, but X stopped him with four simple words.
“Reece has your brother.”
Half out of the car, Jason froze.
X slid across the seat, peering upward. “Reece did something to make me angry. I’m very upset, and he knows it. He took your brother to hold me off. It’s why we’re here, why all of us are here.”
“Get out of the car,” Jason said.
“Let me help you.”
“I said get out of the fucking car.”
“Very well.” X swung out his legs, and folded at the waist. Jason hit him before he was off the seat. It was all he had, and it felt good!
For about half a second.
He took a rifle butt in the head, another in the kidneys. He bent, but didn’t go down. X said, “Enough! That’s enough!” Armed men stepped away, fingers on the triggers. X took Jason by the arm, and straightened him up. “I can help you, but time is short. Are you able to focus? Good.” X led Jason past the men who’d struck him down. The car was a Mustang, but not like Gibby’s. A hardtop. “The keys are in it.” X handed Jason an envelope. “Reece’s address. His floor plans and alarm codes, plus a full set of security schematics. That’s where you’ll find your brother.”
Jason opened the envelope, and flipped pages. Numbers. Diagrams. Sight lines. “How did you get this so fast?”
“I’m a paranoid billionaire. I bought Reece’s security consultant the day after the system was installed. The system is good, but not perfect. You can get inside.”
“Why are you doing this for me?”
X ignored the question. “Reece won’t hurt your brother until he knows I’m dead. The boy’s an insurance policy. It’s not personal.” He looked at his watch. “It’s almost four. You can be at Reece’s house in eighty minutes. Don’t drive fast enough to get pulled over. If your name’s not out yet, it will be. You’ll find weapons in the trunk. Reece will want to be at the execution. He’ll need that. He’s planned for it. I can promise that. If you can bear to wait, the house will be yours, and you can get your brother out, easy. If you can’t wait, you can’t. I know the boy matters.” X paused for a beat. “I’m sorry about this, Jason. I truly am. I did not foresee this behavior from Reece.”
An armed guard approached. “Sir, we don’t have much time.”
X gave Jason a searching look. “You should go.”
Jason got in the car, his thoughts running hot. He started the engine; turned on the headlights.
“I do have one request.” X stooped at the window. “Don’t kill Reece unless you have to. Protect yourself, save your brother. But Reece has become … meaningful to me.”
“In what way?”
“The kind he will not like.”
Jason stared into the night, jaw clenched. “I can’t make you that promise.”
“And I could have left you in prison.”
That was the X Jason knew—hard edges and expectation. Jason’s fingers tightened on the wheel. The big engine was talking. “Tell me why it matters.”
X tilted his head, black-eyed and not quite smiling. “Do you remember Christmas as a child? Well, this is very much like the night before, like Christmas morning is right around the corner, and you just know there’s something special under the tree.”
If Jason lived to be a hundred, he’d never forget the expression on X’s face, that glint-eyed half smile of childish anticipation. But Jason couldn’t make the promise. He would kill Reece without thinking twice. He’d kill anything or anyone that got between him and his brother. If that made X a problem, then it was tomorrow’s problem. The whole situation was X’s fault. He’d brought Jason back to Lanesworth. He’d put Reece on Gibby.
At least Jason was out.
That was real, too. No walls, but no future, either. He had no money, and he grieved for the only thing he’d ever wanted for himself: a few acres of rocky coast, and an old boat with a new engine. But that was out of the question now. He had to run fast and far, but only after he found his brother, and murdered the shit out of Reece.
Or not.
He gave X a small nod, then put the car in gear, and got the hell out, over the hill and down, all along that dirt road. At the end of it, the blocking cars made way, and Jason hit pavement like he lived for the drive. He couldn’t see the city, but felt it out there, like a moon rising. His look at the schematics had been brief, but he’d seen enough to worry. He had bad ribs and busted fingers, blurred vision, and blood in his piss.
He couldn’t do it alone.
He needed help.
Jason ran options as the world flicked past, still and silent, as if respectful of the man and the cause. Jason had been in this place before, fast-moving in deep jungle, or church-quiet on the back of some starlit river. Three years out, and it was still an old friend, the dark charge of war.
When city lights rose in the distance, Jason turned into an empty gas station, and parked beneath one of its lights. The place was closed. No traffic. X wanted Jason to wait for Reece to leave the house, a fine plan if it wasn’t your brother inside. Reece was unstable enough to do anything at any time, so Jason needed another plan. He studied the schematics until he knew them by heart, then opened the trunk, and found what X had promised: an M16A1, a Colt .45, and a half-dozen loaded magazines. Jason checked the actions.
Clean.
Crisp.
Also in the trunk was a hard-sided suitcase with his name written on it in black marker. It was heavy. Jason dragged it out, and popped the clasps.
Cash.
Lots of it.
There was a note, too. Jason read it in the gas station light.
You think me evil, I know, but the money is clean. Burn it if you wish, or give it away if that makes you feel better. Nor, is this a gift—you would decline on principle. See how well I know you? I hope you will consider it compensation, and use it accordingly.
Respectfully, X
PS—I don’t plan to kill people, now that I’m out. Boring.
PPS—Except for Reece, of course. Not boring.
Jason read the note three times, then pulled two bills from the suitcase, and locked everything back in the trunk. He crossed the parking lot, looking sideways as he passed the pay phone.
A couple million in cash, and all he really needed was a pair of dimes.
At the gas station, he picked up a cinder block, tossed it through a window, and let himself in. The place was old and dusty, with shelves of oil and oil filters, headache powders and cigarettes and licorice gum. In the back was a beat-up desk covered with loose papers, ash, and moisture stains. Jason slipped two hundred dollars under the ashtray, and picked up the phone. He needed to make a call, and hated having to do it.