Deadlock (Ryan Lock 2) (11 page)

She walked back to where Coburn was nose to nose with a US Marshal. Behind her, Gross had recovered his composure sufficiently to start haranguing her from a safe distance. ‘My clients could have died in there, Jones,’ he bellowed.

Jalicia tuned Gross out, instead focusing on Coburn and the US Marshals clustered round him. ‘I want this trial up and running again as soon as possible,’ she announced. She glanced back at the building, where smoke was billowing through the windows of the upper floors. ‘We’re going to need a change of venue so let’s get a list of possible federal courts that might be able to accommodate us as soon as possible. We can meet later this afternoon to go over them.’

23

Lock rubbed at his wrists, and settled down in a chair next to Ty’s bedside. Ty’s face was covered by an oxygen mask and he had a line running into his wrist that was connected to two separate IV drips, while a monitor sketched his pulse and blood pressure in luminous green against a black grid. The prison warden, Louis Marquez, stood with Lock and watched the rise and fall of Ty’s chest.

Minutes passed. Lock watched the ventilator as it moved up and down, the monitor’s steady rhythm. Ty’s usual scowl was gone, replaced by an expression devoid of tension. He looked like kids did when they slept. Untroubled.

‘If I’d had my way, Reaper would never have left solitary confinement,’ Marquez said. ‘But the US Attorney’s Office wanted his testimony.’

Lock’s jaw tightened. ‘And they’re still going to get it. I’m going to see to that personally.’

One of Pelican Bay’s numerous medical staff, a petite Asian-American woman whose name badge read Dr Lau, walked into the bay. She checked Ty’s chart without acknowledging either Lock or the warden.

‘How bad is it?’ Lock asked her.

‘There’s some tissue and nerve damage, and we’ve had to pull the slug out of his shoulder, but he’s stable.’

Lock looked over at Marquez. ‘Shouldn’t you be getting him to a civilian facility?’

‘We’re pretty experienced in dealing with violent trauma injuries here,’ Dr Lau said. ‘Get plenty of practice.’

Lock turned to her. ‘He’ll be OK though, right?’

‘There are no guarantees, but, for someone who’s been shot, I’d say his prognosis is good. As long as he doesn’t pick up a secondary infection he should be fine.’

‘What you plan on doing with Reaper?’ Lock asked Marquez.

‘Well, I’ll tell you something, son. I never thought the day would come when I’d say this about an inmate, but I want him out of my goddamn prison. So I plan on shipping him down to San Francisco as soon as I can. Let the goddamn US Attorney’s Office deal with him. If they can.’

‘Maybe now they’ll take our original advice,’ Lock said, ‘and stash him in a safe house.’

‘You know he’ll try to escape, don’t you?’ Marquez cautioned.

‘You seem pretty sure about that.’

‘Soon as I heard that he wanted back on the mainline, that’s what I thought. Of course, having you here kind of cramped his style. That’s probably why he asked the Nazi Low Riders to screw around with you and your buddy.’

Lock thought about this. It made sense that Reaper was behind the Nazi Low Riders’ order to attack Ty. It was a way of getting Lock and Ty out of the way, without appearing openly hostile to Jalicia.

‘Let me know when you’re going to make the transfer and I’ll ride along to make sure I deliver Reaper to the prosecutor personally,’ Lock said.

Lieutenant Williams stuck his head through the curtain. ‘Warden?’

‘What is it?’

Williams hesitated as he looked from the warden to the uncuffed Lock, who was still wearing the prison blues that identified him as an inmate.

‘Go ahead,’ Marquez said. ‘You can speak freely.’

‘Someone just blew up the Federal Building in San Francisco.’

Ty’s heart rate stayed constant on the monitor, while Lock’s jumped. ‘How bad is it?’

‘Bad,’ Williams said. ‘Half a dozen dead. Plenty more injured. They’ve hit the Federal Court building in Los Angeles too.’

‘Same people?’

Williams shrugged a ‘who knows?’. ‘Group calling itself the White Aryan Resistance Movement has claimed both.’

Marquez nodded grimly. ‘Boy, they really don’t want him testifying, do they?’

‘Can you give me a minute?’ Lock asked Marquez.

‘Take as long as you need.’

He nodded at Williams, the two men left, and Lock was finally alone with Ty.

Lock reached out and touched his partner’s hand. ‘Tyrone, listen…’

Ty’s left eye flicked open. He reached up and struggled to pull the oxygen mask to one side so he could speak. Lock helped him with it.

‘Can you not touch me and shit?’ Ty croaked. ‘Don’t want anyone getting the wrong idea.’

Lock felt relief. First that Ty was conscious, but more critically that he was giving Lock grief, which meant he had to be feeling better.

‘What the hell you doin’ here anyway?’

‘Good to see you too, Tyrone.’

‘They didn’t get you then?’

‘Excellent piece of deduction seeing as I’m sitting here with all my limbs intact.’

‘Shit. I was counting on not having to split the fee.’ He pushed himself up to a sitting position. ‘You get me some water, brother?’

Lock filled a glass from the water jug on the table next to Ty and passed it over.

‘How d’you feel?’

‘Like I been shot.’

Ty reached back to adjust the position of his pillows but winced with the pain. Lock did the honors.

‘You want me to get someone?’

‘Maybe that cute little Asian doctor,’ Ty said, lowering his voice. ‘We got a vibe going.’

‘You can’t be feeling that bad.’

‘They didn’t shoot me in the dick.’

Lock glanced down the bed, made a ‘I got bad news’ face.

‘Man, you’d better be messing with me.’

Lock stood up. ‘Just get better, Ty.’

Ty waved him back. ‘You ain’t even given me a sit rep.’

Once Ty had promised to take it easy, Lock filled him in as best he could on events since the riot on the yard.

‘Good call heading to the court with Reaper. I don’t trust that mofo one little bit. Even by convict standards, he’s a snake.’

‘The question is, what kind?’

‘Guess we’re all gonna find out when he takes that stand.’

Lock got up. ‘I gotta go.’

Ty raised a clenched hand. They bumped fists.

‘I mean it about that guy,’ Ty said. ‘Watch your back.’

24

Jalicia and Coburn took their seats in a meeting room within the 9th Circuit Court of Appeal Building in downtown San Francisco. The cell phone of Manny Lopez, the US Marshal in charge of court security, chirped. As he shrugged an apology, the cell phone of the man sitting next to him, an FBI field agent by the name of Peter Breedlove, blasted out the James Bond theme tune. Flushing, Breedlove scrambled to answer it.

He listened for a few moments, then said, ‘When?’ He covered his cell phone with one hand. ‘A bomb threat was just phoned in to the Santa Ana Federal Court building by someone claiming to be from the White Aryan Resistance Movement.’

‘They give a code word?’ Coburn asked.

Breedlove looked irritated. ‘No one heard of these guys until today.’

Jalicia, sitting at the head of the table, put a line through the Santa Ana Court building, which lay third on the list compiled by the US Marshals Service. ‘So, where do we go from here?’

Coburn cleared his throat. ‘The trial doesn’t have to stay in California, does it?’ he asked.

‘Nope,’ said the judge who’d been hearing the case. ‘As long as it’s in a state covered by the 9th Circuit. What were you thinking, Agent Coburn?’

‘Well, we can safely assume, even from early reports, that it’s the same group, and that they’re active in California. After all, California is the Aryan Brotherhood’s home turf.’

Bobby Gross, who’d insisted on being party to the discussion, loosened his tie. ‘Let’s not jump to any conclusions as to who’s responsible,’ he said.

Jalicia noticed that the vein in his neck was pulsing.

‘Oh, come on,’ said Manny Lopez. ‘Who else wants this trial stopped bad enough to bomb at least two Federal Buildings?’

Gross stood up. ‘I will not tolerate—’

‘Regardless of who’s responsible,’ Coburn said, smoothing his hands across the conference table, ‘I think everyone can agree that California’s too dangerous right now.’

There was a general murmur of agreement.

Jalicia leaned forward. ‘You have somewhere in mind?’

‘I think the more remote we go, the better. A smaller community than Los Angeles. That means if anyone shows up who’s out of place it’s going to be one hell of a lot easier to spot them.’

Breedlove, the FBI agent with the 007 fetish, nodded. ‘Makes sense to me. It’s too easy for these people to blend in at a big city court facility.’

‘Then I have just the place,’ Coburn said.

Ten minutes later, across the bay in Oakland, Chance snatched up her cell phone and heard the man on the other end of the line say, ‘It’s playing just like you said.’

Chance’s heart began to pound. Hers had been an educated guess about what would happen after the explosion. When she’d heard that six people had been killed her heart had sunk. Not because she felt bad for them – most of them were either black or Hispanic – but because she thought they might stop the trial entirely, which could set things back weeks if not months. What she’d been counting on was the bloodthirstiness of the prosecutor, and Jalicia Jones hadn’t disappointed.

‘They’re moving it?’

‘Yup.’

There was the sound of voices in the background. Chance was about to end the call when the man on the other end of the line said, ‘Be right with you.’

She could hear the man talking to someone, then he came back to the phone. She smiled at the thought they had someone right there in the belly of the beast.

‘Yeah,’ said the man. ‘They’re moving it to Medford in Oregon. Hope that works for you guys.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Chance, ‘we’ll make it work.’ She paused. ‘What about Reaper? When’s he arriving?’

‘It’s gonna be tight. They’re moving him tomorrow. Soon as I get more details, I’ll let you know.’

25

Wearing his regular civilian uniform of Nike sneakers, blue jeans from Gap and black sweater with a protective vest thrown over the top of it, Lock stopped in front of Reaper’s cell. Lieutenant Williams and the two other guards charged with transferring Reaper to the team of US Marshals outside the prison stood behind him. The early hour had been chosen so that Reaper would leave the prison under cover of darkness and arrive at the court around daybreak. His testimony was expected to take the whole day, with cross-examination running into a second.

Lock had spent the last few hours with Ty, who was staging a strong enough recovery for his own transfer to a civilian medical facility to be scheduled for later that day. He’d also, at long last, spoken to Carrie, who’d initially chewed him out over his lack of contact, then about his stupidity in taking on the job in the first place. Given that the Aryan Brotherhood trial, courtesy of the bombings, was now national rather than just California news, she was already in the air and on the way to the new trial venue in Medford, Oregon, to cover the story for her network. He was looking forward to seeing her, but determined to remain focused on finishing the job he’d started.

Reaper was dressed and waiting for them. Offering his hands up to be cuffed, he checked out Lock’s new look with a smirk. ‘Well, don’t you scrub up nice.’

Smiling back, Lock reached through the hatch and ratcheted Reaper’s cuffs a notch tighter on his wrists. Reaper’s smirk dissolved. He pulled his hands back, walked to the back of his cell, picked up a book and returned to the door. The bubble cop in the pod that controlled access to the cells pressed a button and his cell door opened.

Reaper took a step out into the corridor. The movement of a prisoner had brought the inmates in the cells around him to the Arizona doors which fronted the cells in this section of the prison. Eyes pressed against the half-inch holes which perforated the doors in place of the more traditional bars.

Lock took the book from Reaper’s hands –
The Art of War
– and handed it to Williams, who flicked the pages before returning it to Reaper.

‘JPATS are usually a little light on in-flight entertainment,’ Reaper said by way of explanation.

Reaper glanced down at his legs, presumably anticipating having leg restraints put round his feet. But Lock had already advised that they forgo this particular measure during Reaper’s transfer. If there was an attempt on his life, which looked more likely than ever given the bombings, they would have to get him out of the situation. If that was the case, a protectee who couldn’t run would likely get everyone killed.

Lock put a hand on Reaper’s elbow and with a ‘Let’s go’ guided him back along the spur of cells that led into the centre of this section of the SHU. Most of the cells were occupied by white inmates, but overcrowding after the riot had ensured a sprinkling of Hispanic and black prisoners. It was like walking past the lions’ enclosure at midnight. Eyes peered, yellow and unblinking, from the depths of every cell, lips peeled back over teeth. Then came the low roar of threats designed to get the prey’s blood pumping – all the faster for it to bleed out.

Lock and Williams positioned themselves on Reaper’s left so that they stood directly between Reaper and the cell doors. Even with the doors sealed, and with no bars, it wasn’t unheard of for prisoners to use improvised darts tipped with a filed-down metal disc from a sprinkler head, dipped in their own faeces and then propelled through one of the half-inch holes in their cell door using the elastic from shorts, to take out a guard or other enemy.

A final threat was hissed low in Spanish from a nearby cell before the door at the end of the corridor clicked open and Lock led Reaper’s escort out into the hub of the SHU, then along a wide linoleum-floored corridor towards the sallyport – a confined double-doored space used to control entry to and exit from the SHU.