Some people crack under torture, some do not, and then there are a few that crack at the very mention of it. Parsons wasn’t happy with the plan, but she sat next to Fiona and I with bated breath watching. She needed just as many answers as we did.
Thankfully, she didn’t have to watch much. Patterson still had my baton. One strike against Marshal Fulton’s leg and Fulton would have given up the Pope.
Sadly, he didn’t seem to know much. The mystery man was a Marshal, but he was pretty sure he was just a middle man. He’d been ordered to smuggle in a few items, including the sword I had laid claim to. He hadn’t smuggled in any bomb materials. His payment was going to be three million dollars in an off shore account, but he didn’t know who was paying him. He’d received half up front, a good faith payment. A week ago, he’d been told that the day after the codes changed, the uprising was to begin. It was his job to get Alejandro Gui a weapon and instruct the large former Marshal to get rid of Eric Clachan. This morning, Marshal Fulton had gotten a message telling him to ensure that Yuri also died since he wouldn’t accept the contract.
There were about twenty serial killers in on it, but he didn’t know all of them. Just a few. He knew more that had not accepted the proposition than had. He wasn’t sure what the payment was for them, but it hadn’t seemed to be enough. He’d killed Deacon Priest to stop the man from telling us that Fulton had escorted him to the meeting with the other Marshal.
His last bit of information was that none of the women were supposed to make it out of the prison alive. It was the cover story. The prison erupted in a riot so that the male serials could get to the females and do what serial killers do best. He wasn’t entirely sure if it was to bring down the Fortress or just get female serials out of it. I had a theory that I wasn’t voicing. If I were right, then it would shed some light on things. If I was wrong, we would spend hours chasing a dead end and we couldn’t afford that right now.
However, Jackie and Hannah had both said they were going to be paid in escape plans when they were moved to a less secure prison. If that was the case, then it was possible that the entire thing was to a) attack the Serial Killer and Mass Murderer infrastructure and b) make sure women were never put into the Fortress again. To me that sounded like a female that didn’t want to be stuck behind the walls of the Fortress, for whatever reason was behind all of this. Yet, it was just a theory and not a great one at that. We still didn’t have all the puzzle pieces. It was just as likely that the mastermind had lied to the women and that there was no payment plan if they made it out alive, just the contingency to kill them.
Malachi asked for a show of hands of anyone that had been contacted by the mystery Marshal. None went up. I hadn’t really expected them too, but I had been hopeful. This lot wasn’t suitable for such practices. They were the ones that didn’t mind being locked away. They were the ones that thought it was better for them to be in here than out there. It was what drove their loyalty to the Marshals. Brent Timmons had once told me he wouldn’t make it more than two days on the outside without killing and knew his place was within these walls. Here, he was safe and the world was safe from him. It was hard to argue with logic like that.
Killers like this were the minority. They were the ones that no longer had the arrogance to believe they could get away with their crimes indefinitely. They were neither happy nor unhappy. Their blood lust still called to them, but they had learned to ignore it. They were more like me than the monsters on the outside of cafeteria. Also like me, they did occasionally kill one another and they could make that work for them for a long time.
The cafeteria was one story, but it wasn’t a normal one story. A balcony ran around the room at roughly fifteen feet. The entrance to this restricted position was hidden from view at the moment. There was approximately another ten feet above it. It made the first floor ceilings exceptionally tall. However, tall ceilings were part of the hallmark of the Fortress and added to the moniker it had earned. My eyes continued to sweep along it. It was empty, devoid of life, but when the uprising had started, there should have been people up there. Marshals with tear gas canisters, and in emergencies, the ability to release gas canisters with sedative properties.
Yet, the floor was not littered with this debris. Not a single one seemed to have been launched into the unruly crowd. The door that held the precious canisters was closed, and from what I could tell, still latched.
I knew from my few familiarization visits that three people were up there during meal times. It seemed farfetched that all three would be involved. That was a lot of corruption, one or two Marshals, maybe. Three was possible, but unlikely, to get one in the women’s ward plus three that were going to be in the cafeteria seemed nearly impossible.
“Dominic,” I called him over, refusing to move. I was fairly sure I was one giant bruise. Dominic Lazar came over. “Who was up there when this started?”
“Fulton, Peart, and myself,” Dominic said.
“Why didn’t you go for the canisters of tear and sedation canisters?”
“The door wouldn’t unlock,” Dominic answered. “When we realized this, we came down the stairs, entered the kitchen, and came into the dining hall to help deal with the riot. However, the moment I entered the room, I could tell something was different. One of the serial killers had a large knife, nothing like we keep on the premises, so I rushed to where I had seen Eric and Patterson. I knew if they were both alive and I stuck with them, I’d be okay.”
“You decided to trust your life with serial killers instead of Marshals?” Parsons asked.
“Someone gave Deacon Priest that knife. It wasn’t an inmate and the inmate’s visitors weren’t smuggling it in. Eric is a killer of cop killers and we have some history. I knew I’d be safe with him,” Dominic said.
“History?” I made it a question.
“Marshal Lazar came to my defense once,” Eric said absently, not even turning around to look at me. “A few years ago, we had this mean cuss of a Marshal in here. He was just killing time until retirement. Since I was small and didn’t seem particularly dangerous, he decided to make an example of me so that the others wouldn’t get out of line. Marshal Lazar stopped him and reported him. He was transferred the following day and Lazar went to bat for me, making sure I wasn’t punished for the blow or two I landed.”
“Not everyone in here is an animal,” Dominic told me. “As a matter of fact, most of them, if you treat them with respect, will treat you the same. There are exceptions, but the block I work on is mostly that way.”
There was no need for further explanation. I suddenly realized how the Fortress was organized. The loyals were all in the same cellblock. There were a few miscreants, but those were the exception, not the rule. In theory, if they had all been in their cellblock when the uprising had happened, they could have helped shut it down. Since they were having lunch, they had been rendered impotent. The area had been one of the first to be secured. A few of the rowdier ones had been let loose, but the others had all been forced to stay in the cafeteria, trapped and encircled. They wouldn’t have stood a chance if they had gone out to help.
Someone would have needed to enter the master codes on the doors in each cellblock. Someone would have had to make sure the situation in the cafeteria was handled properly. Someone would have needed to be in charge of the women’s ward. Someone would have needed to be in charge of keeping the tactical teams from getting the upper hand. Finally, someone would have been needed to detonate the bombs. That wasn’t work you left to serial killers if you wanted it done right. That meant four on the inside, one on the outside, and a way to communicate with the outside person. We had discovered two of the five Marshals. I wondered if three million dollars was the going price for all of them.
I trusted Dominic Lazar. I trusted Parsons. I trusted the SCTU and VCU. I trusted Demetrius Lazar. I trusted most of the serial killers. Everyone else was suspect. There were approximately one hundred US Marshals staffed by the Fortress during this shift. They worked twelve hours a day, three days a week. That meant all five had to be in the same rotation this week for it to work. It was a Tuesday, which was the day new staff members were introduced to their duties. I took a count of uniforms. There was no way we had one hundred Marshals in the cafeteria. We might have had forty-five or fifty. A portion of them were beaten and battered.
“I think we should go look for the missing Marshals,” I announced, forcing myself to stand up before I became stiff. My foot hurt when I put weight on it.
“You know they are probably dead, right?” Malachi asked.
“That was my thought too, but I have not seen any dead Marshals,” I responded. “Has anyone else?”
“No,” Caleb admitted.
“I have a nagging what if scenario in my head. We have not seen dead ones because they are not dead. They are being held. It could be why we only see the serial killers sporadically. Large groups of them would be needed to hold fifty or more US Marshals. My guess is they have been locked inside cells somewhere that we just have not been to yet, but we would need to find them to confirm that.”