Saturday afternoon
November 6 – 2:34 p.m. MDT
Denver, Colorado
“Max?” Wyatt sat up in bed.
“No, love,” an accented woman’s voice said from the other side of the room.
“Who are you?” Wyatt asked.
“I’m Niamh Kelly Mac Kinney,” the woman said. Her face came into focus. She was older than Cian, but not by much. She had darker eyes and dark hair. She was knitting what looked like a homespun wool sweater. Wyatt realized what she’d said.
“Wait, what?” Wyatt shook his head to clear it. “How can you be a Kelly and Mac Kinney?”
“Can you think of a way?” the woman smiled.
Wyatt shook his head.
“I married a Mac Kinney,” the woman said. “Cian met Eoin through me and my Jack. ‘Course they were the same age, same school, same temperament.”
“Um . . . Mrs. Kelly-Mac Kinney . . .”
“You may call me Neev,” she said. “Cian calls me Neevie; Eoin does, as well. Johnny, well, he’s right proper with his London accent and all; he calls me Niamh.”
“Sounds like Neev,” Wyatt said.
“It would to your American ears, now wouldn’t it?” She smiled.
“Nice to meet you,” Wyatt said. “But . . . I’m naked and woozy from the drugs. Why are you here?”
She smiled at him. Setting down her knitting, she got up and opened the closet where his clothing was hanging. She gestured to his undergarments on the bed.
“You may get dressed,” she said. “I’ll wait outside.”
“Wait,” Wyatt said. “I know you wouldn’t be here if you weren’t here to help. It’s hard to get into our house and you weren’t here at Christmas so . . .”
“Who am I to you?” Neev smiled. “I’m the one who is going to help you become free of what was placed in your head.”
“I thought Alex did that last night,” Wyatt said.
“Yes, she’s talented at debriefing,” Neev said. “Close your eyes for a moment. Are you one hundred percent?”
Wyatt closed his eyes for a moment. He shook his head.
“Exactly,” Neev opened the door.
“But . . . and I mean no disrespect, but how can you help?” Wyatt asked.
“I do more than knit, my dear,” Neev said.
“It looks like you’re unknitting,” Wyatt said.
“Yes, unknitting is, in fact, what I’m best at,” Neev smiled. “Both on the yarn and with people.”
“With people?”
“Deprogramming,” Neev said. “Learned how to do it when I was a lass. I’ve got the same fancy degrees you have, as well. Plus, I’m pretty good at it; do it all over the world; and you’re family.”
“What about Mr. Mac Kinney?” Wyatt smiled.
“Where do you think I learned it?” Neev returned his smile. “Get dressed. We’ll go for a walk.”
Wyatt nodded to her, and she left the room. When she returned, she gave Wyatt a travel mug.
“What’s this?” Wyatt asked.
“Coffee,” she said. “You looked like you could use it. Tea for myself. Oh and . . .”
She held up a bag full of Cian’s lemon drop cookies.
“What about the drugs? I need to be sedated and . . .”
“That was just to keep you quiet until I could get here,” Neev said. “Sorry, we couldn’t think of any other way.”
Wyatt nodded.
“Do you mind that I’m gay?” Wyatt asked. “I assume you’re Catholic and . . .”
“Aren’t you Catholic?” Neev asked.
Wyatt nodded.
“No, I have a brother who’s gay; always has been, always will be,” Neev said. “He’s God’s perfect creature.”
“Cian’s gay?” Wyatt was too muddled to say anything else.
“You haven’t met his girlfriend? He’s quite serious about her,” Neev said. “Lovely girl. Kind of short, but then again, he’s not much bigger. We’ve only talked through the computer. I hope to meet her while I’m here. No, I have lots of brothers, as I understand you do.”
“I do,” Wyatt smiled and pulled on his heavy jacket. “Your gay brother, is he a priest?”
“That he was,” Neev said. Wyatt held her jacket for her. She smiled and let him help. “Moved to the Republic just after we immigrated. They even have a few babes. Adopted out of care. They live in Donegal, across the island from Belfast.”
Wyatt nodded. She stepped into the hallway. He stopped at the door.
“How does it feel to be out of that room?” Neev asked.
“Weird,” Wyatt said. “I feel . . . exposed.”
“Johnny told me there’s a lovely park nearby,” Neev said. “Would you care to show an old gal her way around your park?”
“Love to.” For reasons he couldn’t imagine, Wyatt held his elbow out to her, and she took it.
“I was a nun,” Neev said conspiratorially as they walked toward the stairs. “The love of my life was in prison. I wanted nothing else than to hide among the sisters.”
“What happened?” Wyatt asked.
“He showed up one day right after vespers,” Neev said. “Since you know Cian and Johnny, I’ll tell you the truth. We Kellys aren’t great at those sacred vows. The chastity thing gets us every time.”
Wyatt laughed and opened the door. They went out into the late fall sunshine.
FFFFFF
Saturday afternoon
November 6 – 4:23 p.m. PDT
Pelican Bay Prison, Crescent City, California
Lined up against the wall, Trece stared straight ahead while the warden gave his “Welcome to Hell” speech. There were two scrawny guys on his left and a fat guy on his right. His entire being screamed at the injustice of his situation. He longed to let loose. He mentally walked through the moves to kill almost all of them before the guards shot him.
But he’d promised Alex he wouldn’t kill anyone.
He almost never broke a promise to Alex.
The closer he got to the eventual clang of the prison cell door, the louder the whisper of his childhood predator became in his head. “You belong right here. Servicing your masters. Don’t bother trying to escape. You’ll always return right here.” The words sent chills up Trece’s spine. He swallowed hard. He’d be lucky to survive this.
The warden stood right in front of him.
Trece had no idea what the man was saying. He looked around the man. As if to emphasize a point, the warden gestured with his right index finger. That man’s finger was getting awfully close to his chest. Trece used his decades of military discipline to not twist off the warden’s finger. Trece sneered and looked directly at the finger.
The warden had a black Vivaldi “F” tattooed on his right wrist.
Trece locked eyes with the man. This man had been rescued by the Fey Special Forces Team. The man gave an almost imperceptible nod.
Alex had talked to the warden.
Trece was not alone.
For the first time since the SWAT team had arrived, Trece took a full breath. The warden finished his speech and stalked off. The guards started moving them into the general population. Pelican Bay had two separate divisions – a solitary confinement called the Secure Housing Unit or SHU and a general population of violent offenders. Trece figured his best bet was to make trouble in the general population and get into the SHU right away. He could deal with twenty-three hours on his own. Frankly, with a two-year-old and an infant, he could use the rest.
“Usted va con un violador.” They are putting you in with a rapist.
Trece’s eyes flicked to a Hispanic man with a large thirteen tattoo on his forehead. The man bumped into him and slipped a handmade shiv into his hand.
“Conseguir que antes de que usted consigue.”
Get him before he gets you.
Trece growled at the little man with the tattoo. The little man raised his hands and backed away. A guard pushed the prisoner father away from Trece. They continued moving into the prison.
“Trece!” a voice yelled the name of the gang, the V 13s, and Andrew Ramirez’s nickname. Another voice from a cell near the top of the prison joined in, “Trece!”
Shouting “Trece,” the prisoners began to stamp their feet in the cells. Trece had forgotten what it was like to be connected with the brotherhood. He’d grown up in the V 13 in Venice, California. Trece was ten years old when his cousin had killed a cop. Trece had taken the rap to keep his cousin from killing his mother.
He despised the V 13 and everything they stood for. But right now, in this prison, they stood between him and almost certain death. He tried to strut like he deserved the attention.
“Quiet down,” the guards yelled. “Knock it off.”
The Aryan Brotherhood responded by banging on their metal bars and screaming threats. The Black Guerilla Family began to yell and stomp on the floor. Not to be out done, the Nuestra Familia joined the “Trece” call. The sound of the prisoners was deafening. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw guards on every level move along the cells.
A guard grabbed him by the collar of his blue shirt and tossed him into a cell.
Clang. The cell door closed.
That horrible sound that meant he was truly trapped, alone, and at the mercy of the predator.
Click. The cell door locked.
And he was stuck.
Trece smelled the man more than saw him. He spun in place.
“Wheet whoo,” the man whistled as he circled Trece. “You are one fine piece of ass.”
Trece grabbed the man by the collar. With one quick jerk, Trece had cut off the man’s air supply with the front of his shirt. He pulled the prisoner close to his face and sneered. His other hand pressed the shiv just under the man’s rib cage.
The man’s eyes laughed at him. Trece was about to choke him out when the man nodded to his right shoulder. The eyes of the man’s long, olive-green snake tattoo were tiny black Vivaldi F’s. He gave Trece a “go-ahead” nod and Trece choked him unconscious. Trece tossed the man onto the top bunk.
Too wound up for sleep, Trece went through his cellmate’s possessions. Behind a Hustler centerfold, he found a note written in Arabic on lined paper. The jagged edge indicated the paper and note were torn from one of the memo books resting on the top shelf. This note was for him. He sat down on the bottom bunk and read.
“Best guess is your cousin was picked up by the cartels in Juarez. Until we find his body, you’re stuck. This is Emanuel Vega. He’s DHS, Weapons of Mass Destruction. Rumor is the MS-13 are making bioweapons in the toilets of Pelican Bay and moving them via their relatives. Your cousin brokered a deal between the V 13, the MS-13, and Nuestra Familia in Pelican Bay. They will be around to vet you. Emanuel is a viper. He can call it anytime, and you’ll go into SHU. It’s up to you. We’re working to get you home. A”
Trece lay back on the bunk and wondered it meant to be a viper. Vipers were deadly poisonous snakes native to the Americas, a home built kit plane, and a helicopter flown by the US Marines. Trece had no idea what Alex meant by “Emanuel is a viper.” After driving himself crazy, he settled into missing Luz and White Boy. For the last twenty years or so, if he wasn’t with Luz, he was with White Boy. Finally, he got sick of himself and practiced his Alex-mandated Zen meditation.
The viper would be up soon, and Trece would have to deal with him.
At least he was safe.
He smiled and thanked whatever God arranged for him to meet Alex Hargreaves and then remembered that her father had sent him to Bosnia. The image of God he’d learned in catechism – the white man with the long white beard sitting on a throne in the fluffy white clouds – now had Patrick Hargreaves face. He laughed out loud. Closing his eyes, he settled into his meditation.
F