Criminal Destiny (18 page)

“What's this sticky stuff? Is it blood?”

I hustle him into the bathroom, and turn on the light. It
is
blood, but just a trickle from a small impact cut above his left eye. It's easy enough to clean up, but he'll probably
have a bruise tomorrow. “What were you doing out of the room?” I ask.

“I couldn't sleep,” he admits. “I kept thinking that, when it's time for me to hack into the computer system at Kefauver, what if I can't make it work from my iPad? So I went to the computer room next to the office.”

“And?” I prompt.

“Well,” he explains, “the main site has a lot of security, but the hospital's different because they have to exchange medical records and information with outside doctors and clinics. I can get in—that's if I don't have amnesia from being bashed in the head.”

“Sorry about that.” I flush. “If things go bad tomorrow—if it turns out, you know, this is the last time we see each other—” Suddenly, I can't finish my own thought. I'm not sure I ever knew what I was trying to tell him. Maybe this:
We went through something pretty terrible. We're still going through it. The one thing that's made it bearable is that you've been there.

(I could never say that out loud.)

He takes my hand and squeezes it, holding on so long that I actually count:
One . . . two . . . three . . .

“It'll be fine,” he tells me finally.

I wonder if he believes it any more than I do.

Lugging the food bag between us, Hector and I cross the highway and start up the drive for the front gate of Kefauver Federal Detention Facility. The time is 12:15. We've all synchronized watches.

“Nice day for a picnic, huh?” Hector says nervously.

I look around as if noticing the weather for the first time. It
is
a nice day—cloudless sky, sunny, with that inevitable Texas heat. It occurs to me for the first time—what would we do with our picnic if it was pouring rain? Is that how good this plan is? How many other important things didn't I think of?

Kefauver policy may allow picnics, but that doesn't stop the gate sentry from searching our food bag with everything short of an electron microscope. After he paws through it all, he invites us to move on. As we proceed through the security procedures, our bag is unpacked and searched twice more, X-rayed once, and passed through two metal detectors. It definitely spoils the picnic mood. But, of course, this has never been about lunch for Hector and me. We're scared out of our minds.

Finally, we're standing in the same visitors' meeting room we were in yesterday as C. J. Rackoff is escorted to our side.

“The crowd's getting smaller,” he comments. “Was it something I said?”

I try to laugh, but it comes out a strangled sound. “We brought you a picnic lunch, Uncle C.J.”

He looks to the guard, who nods. “You're approved for the outdoor tables. Let's go.”

We're marched down echoing corridors, and through steel security doors. I catch a few questioning glances from Rackoff, but luckily he knows enough to keep his mouth shut. Hector has always been the smartest of us, and this must be where he gets it.

There's only one way to describe the picnic area: secure. There's a little grass—half a knoll between thirty-foot fences topped with razor wire. One of the guard towers looks directly down on the wooden tables. It's not indoors and behind bars, but it might as well be.

At least they leave us alone. As we unload the sandwiches and drinks, I drop a napkin and stoop to pick it up. What I'm really doing is checking the underside of the table for listening devices. What we have to say doesn't need to be shared with the prison authorities.

Rackoff says, “I ask for my freedom, and you bring me a sandwich. Excuse me for being a little disappointed.”

“Maybe you can have both,” Hector retorts.

He looks intrigued. “Tell me more.”

“We'll get you out,” I say in a low voice, “but only if you promise to help us tell our story to the world.”

“You have my word,” he replies readily.

I look to Hector, who has the best chance of anyone alive of knowing what's inside the head of this master criminal. He nods.

“Okay,” I begin. “Listen carefully, because we have to get this exactly right . . .”

I wonder how the picnic is going.

I check my watch. 1:17 p.m. By now it's in full swing, and Rackoff knows exactly what our plan is. I hope he can pull it off. He's an accomplished con man and professional liar. But let's face it—if he was that good, he wouldn't be in prison in the first place.

The parking lot of the Bearclaw is just a dirt clearing beside the tiny diner. It's back from the road and surrounded by high bushes, where we're crouched, hiding.

If that waitress is to be believed, George is due here in his post office truck in exactly thirteen minutes. I can already feel lines of sweat streaming down under my shirt. By the time George arrives, I'll be a puddle.

Malik slaps at a mosquito on his cheek. “How come
there always has to be bugs?”

“You think Gus Alabaster's afraid of mosquitoes?” Amber says in amusement.

“I'm not afraid of them. I just hate them.” He takes the three-foot crowbar he's brandishing and uses it to disperse a cloud of gnats. The thing comes dangerously close to my head, and I duck. I've already been coldcocked by Tori. My face doesn't need any more rearranging.

My eyes are never far from my watch, until 1:30. “He's late—” I begin. But before the echo of my words has time to die, the USPS van is turning into the drive. The waitress is right. You
can
set your watch by George.

He pulls into the parking lot and gets out of the car, heading for the entrance to the diner.

“This is it!” whispers Malik, preparing to step out of the bushes and intercept the post office man.

An instant later, a second vehicle pulls into the Bearclaw parking lot—a Texas state trooper. I haul Malik back down into the cover of the foliage.

Malik wrestles himself free and peers through the leafy branches. George is almost at the front door. “He's getting away!”

“What are you going to do?” I demand. “Threaten him in front of a cop?”

“We'll just have to wait till he comes out,” Amber decides.

“What if the cop's still here?” Malik asks frantically.

“You can't see the parking lot from the restaurant,” I soothe. “We'll have to chance it. It's our only way of staying on schedule.”

We cool our heels, which is almost impossible in this climate.

A few minutes later, the cop emerges carrying a candy bar and a diet Dr Pepper. He drives off. Still no sign of George, who is probably enjoying the fresh-baked bear claw he was promised yesterday.

Now we're all looking at our watches. He has to be at Kefauver in twelve minutes, so he should be coming out any second. 1:49, 1:50, 1:51 . . .

Malik starts to panic. “What happened to the guy you can set your watch by?”

“Cool your jets!” Amber exclaims, but I can see she's just as wired as he is.

And then there he is, a minute behind schedule, and walking fast to make up the time—George.

As he steps through the gap in the trees into the parking area, the three of us emerge from cover and block his path.

“Out of my way, kids. I'm in a hurry.”

Malik raises the crowbar menacingly. “Sorry, mister. I need your van keys and your uniform.”

He laughs. “No, seriously. I'm running a little late.” His eyes narrow as he recognizes us. “Hey, you were in the Bearclaw yesterday. What do you want?”

Malik rears back the crowbar like a baseball bat. “I already told you. Your keys and your uniform. I don't want to have to hurt you.”

The man steps forward, and tries to shove Malik out of his way. But Malik doesn't shove so easily, and stands his ground.

Amber speaks up. “Don't you get it, George? He's going to crack your skull open!”

George continues walking. “Let him try.” He's getting angry now, and he doesn't look even a little bit scared.

Malik
does
look scared, the crowbar still cocked back, ready for a home run swing. “You crazy idiot, why are you making me do this? Don't you know who I am? I'm Gus Alabaster!”

George stops to stare at him. “The
gangster
? You're bat-poop crazy, that's who you are!”

Malik's eyes bulge. His whole body tenses for action like a panther ready to spring. I experience an instant of
horror in that split second before the killer blow.

It doesn't happen. Instead, Malik drops the crowbar and enfolds the postal worker in a wrestling hug. George struggles against him, but Malik is just as big as he is, and strong. The man's arms are imprisoned at his side.

“The keys!” Malik grunts, the color of his face deepening through red into purple.

“It's a crime to interfere with the post office!”

Amber snatches up the fallen crowbar, steps back, and takes aim at the guy's head. The sheer determination in her eyes tells me one thing: maybe Malik won't do it, but she will.

I jump in front of her.
“No!”

Her expression is stone cold. “You don't make a threat if you're not prepared to carry it out!”

“Hold him still!” I bellow at Malik. I reach down to poor George, and feel around his throat, looking for a certain pressure point. When I find it, I pinch hard. George's struggles die down and, in a couple of seconds, he slumps in Malik's arms, unconscious.

Malik is horrified. “What did you do? Is he dead?”

“No, he's just out cold. I couldn't let her brain him!”

Amber drops the crowbar. “Where'd you learn that, Eli?” she asks, impressed.

“It's on the internet! There's this artery, and when you cut off the blood flow—”

Malik interrupts. “Help me get his shirt off! Come on! We're running out of time!”

Working as quickly as we can, we get the post office uniform off George and onto Malik. It's a little loose, especially the pants. But Malik will be behind the wheel of the van when the Kefauver sentries see him, with his lower half out of view.

The car keys are in the pants pocket. I place Malik's discarded things over the body of the unconscious George so he'll have something to wear when he comes to.

“That's my favorite T-shirt,” Malik says wistfully.

We're into the van, down the road, and gone. 1:56.

As we pass the Tumbleweed Inn, Malik slows down so we can hop out. He drives on to Kefauver, tires squealing.

Amber and I run for the hotel.

Next stop: the computer room.

Turns out C. J. Rackoff is allergic to peanut butter. Who knew? And I love peanut butter. So I guess DNA doesn't mean everything.

It's an easy fix in the plan. Tori and I eat the PBJs, and leave the cheese sandwiches for “Uncle C.J.” What's on the menu isn't the important thing anyway.

Rackoff washes his last bite down with a swig of lemonade, steps away from the picnic table bench, and collapses to the grass, grabbing at his throat.

Tori screams.

“Uncle C.J.!”
I holler.

We kneel over him. “Get help! Our uncle's sick!” I yell up at the sentry in the tower.

The call for help turns out to be unnecessary. Three
other guards are racing toward us, proving that our private picnic wasn't so private after all.

“Allergies!” Rackoff rasps. “Peanuts! Throat closing up!”

Nobody waits for a gurney. Two of the officers grab him by the legs and under the arms, and run into the building. We follow. He's our uncle, after all. We're terrified—although not because of any allergy.

To our immense relief, they use a passkey to summon the emergency elevator. That means their destination is the second-floor hospital, which is exactly where we need Rackoff to be.

“Go to the security desk, and they'll see you out,” one of the men advises.

“We're not leaving our uncle!” Tori sobs. Her ability to cry on cue is actually kind of impressive.

“He'll be well looked after,” the other guard promises.

“No!” she shrieks. “We're staying with Uncle C.J.!”

The first man seems to weigh the need to get rid of us against the urgency of taking Rackoff to medical attention. When the elevator arrives, we're allowed to get on with them. “Stay close,” he advises. “It's not safe for you to be wandering around without supervision.”

The next time the doors open, we're in the hospital. It's
the one place inside Kefauver that doesn't look like a jail. It's white and clean with a sharp antiseptic smell, and the nurses and doctors are not in Department of Corrections uniforms. It reminds me of Dr. Bruder's clinic back in Serenity, only a lot bigger.

They load Rackoff onto a gurney, and give him a shot to counteract the allergy. Then they wheel him behind a portable partition to wait for the doctor. The guards try to take us out of there, but Tori pitches an absolute fit, screaming,
“Not till I know he's going to be okay!”

For a minute, I'm afraid the guards are going to overrule us. But before they can, the nurse relents. “The doctor will be a few more minutes. Let them keep their uncle company. It could help his breathing if he's relaxed. Have a heart. They're just kids.”

That's how we end up all alone with C. J. Rackoff behind the partition.

Tori does the scouting through the curtain. “Okay,” she whispers, “the laundry chute is about thirty feet down the hall. Once you drop down there, you're in the prison laundry, right next door to the workshop.”

“So what are we waiting for?” asks Rackoff.

I check my watch. “It's not time yet. At exactly two-oh-five, Eli hacks into the hospital computer and plants a
notation that you've recovered, and been taken back to your cell.”

He seems impressed. “Old Felix picked some choice DNA when he built his clone army.”

I think that's supposed to be a compliment.

But there's not much time to be insulted. At 2:04, we roll the gurney through the curtain.

And freeze.

There's a guard in the hall, not six feet from the chute. We pull Rackoff back behind the partition. I turn to Tori and mouth the words:
Do they know?

She shakes her head, directing me to peer through the gap in the hanging fabric. The guard is laughing with one of the nurses, showing her something on his phone. Okay, so they aren't onto us, but this could be just as bad. I glance at my watch. It's 2:06. Eli has already done his thing on the computer. We're ready to go! But how can we dump someone down the laundry chute with two people standing
right there
?

Rackoff regards us questioningly. Tori silences him with a finger to her lips. Her expression says it all: not a sound. This is deadly serious.

The minutes pass like months. 2:07 . . . 2:08. Beads of sweat are forming on her brow. Throughout the preparation,
the one thing she impressed on us over and over again was split-second timing. The computer hack, the laundry chute—bang, bang. It had to be that quick.

2:09 . . . 2:10. Who knows how this might throw off Malik in the USPS truck? The whole plan could fall apart!

Suddenly, Tori squeezes my arm hard enough to splinter bone. The guard and the nurse are starting away. I begin a mental ten count to make sure they're gone, but Tori springs into action before I get to eight. She blasts out of the partition, pushing the gurney ahead of her. I scramble to catch up.

A final scan to confirm the coast is clear, and I open the chute. It's the work of seconds for Rackoff to roll off the stretcher and wriggle feet first into the passage, for all the world like a little kid going down a slide at the park.

We hear a distant
foomp,
the sound of him hitting a laundry bin one floor below.

The next part we can only imagine: Rackoff scrambling out of the laundry, and slipping into the workshop next door. There are guards down there, and getting caught is always a possibility. But he's a familiar face, wearing the same prison fatigues as everybody else. So there's no reason he can't blend in with the other prisoners on detail there. Anyway, it's out of our hands now. Our last remaining job
is to get ourselves out of Kefauver.

We walk briskly to the nurse's station. Tori says, “We're ready to leave now.”

The nurse looks surprised. “What about your uncle?”

“He got better,” she says, “so they took him back to his cell.”

Frowning, she checks the computer. “So they did.”

Good old Eli!

Tori's eyes brim with tears. “We haven't seen him in so long!”

She's such a good actress that I almost cry myself.

“I'm sorry.” She hands us each a pass and points us in the direction of the elevator. “Show these to the sentry downstairs, and they'll escort you to the front gate.”

We step onto the elevator. We feel relief that our part is over. But it's dwarfed by the understanding that so much can still go wrong.

Now it's all up to Malik.