Patriots & Tyrants (12 page)

Running to the twin unit a few feet away from the one he was hidden behind, Declan pressed his back against the unit and watched for the Chechen as he reached out to Kafni's wife, grabbing her by the arm. The dark haired woman looked up at him and met his eyes. He nodded his head back indicating that he wanted her to move behind him. The sound of the gravel shifting under Mrs. Kafni's feet as she moved towards Declan attracted the attention of the Chechen who began firing, the bullets impacting the roof's floor and churning the gravel. With Kafni's wife secure, only the Mossad agent himself was left in the line of fire. Behind the two air conditioning units opposite them, Declan could hear the sound of shifting gravel indicating the Chechen was moving around and looking for them. The police sirens filled the air, now only a few blocks from their location. He knew it would take a bold action to end the threat to Kafni's life, an action that would mean exposing himself and possibly being shot. Gripping his pistol tight with both hands, he took a deep breath, turned one hundred and eighty degrees and jumped straight up, rolling across the top of the air conditioning unit and landing on the other side. He rushed forward and pressed his back against the opposite side of the same unit the Chechen was using for cover.

The Chechen growled angrily knowing his time was up and Declan listened as the sound of the shifting gravel indicated the man was moving in Kafni's direction. Diving out from behind the unit at the same time as the Chechen, Declan landed on the gravel and fired upwards rapidly into the advancing wild man's chest. The sound of semi-automatic gunfire covered the blare of the approaching sirens as Declan emptied his magazine into the Chechen, driving the man backwards towards the edge of the roof. As the report of the weapon echoed away followed by an empty clicking, Declan jumped to his feet and rushed towards the man who stood leaned against the edge of the roof wearing a stunned expression, gaping wounds bleeding profusely across his chest and covering the front of his camouflage jacket with inky red stains. Declan turned and launched his foot sideways with an adrenaline fueled growl, connecting with the man's head and driving him the rest of the way over the roof's edge. The sound of a hollow thud and crushing glass followed by the sound of a car alarming reached the rooftop as Declan stood upright.

Taking a deep breath, he looked over the edge of the roof at the body of the Chechen that lay wrapped in the wreckage of a vehicle parked on the street, staring at the sky with an intense hatred as if he was looking at the disapproving face of God himself.

Declan turned around and leaned against the edge of the concrete knee wall, allowing himself to slide down and sit on the gravel floor. Breathing heavily, with the intensity of the last half an hour suddenly catching up with him, he looked across the roof at Abaddon Kafni and his wife, who now held her jacket against her husband's chest, keeping pressure on his wound. The sound of tires screeching to a halt sounded below them as the police arrived.

Abaddon Kafni slowly turned his head in Declan's direction, mouthing the words
thank you.
Declan nodded back. Kafni's favor to him in Belfast and on the shores of Galway had been repaid. Their account was settled. Willing himself to his feet, Declan stood and turned to look over the edge of the roof at the cluster of police cruisers that stood a few houses back. Officers on radios stood in the doorway of several of the vehicles and a SWAT team exited the back of an armored vehicle. The entire block was surrounded.

Declan held his arms up straight in the air and waved them like he was flagging down a helicopter. "Up here!" he yelled. Several of the closest officers looked up. "We've got a man down on the first floor and a man down on the roof! We need medics immediately!"

An officer brought a bullhorn to his mouth and said, "Where's the shooters?"

"They're dead," Declan answered lowering his arms. "They're all dead."

One hundred ninety-eight… one hundred ninety-nine… tw
o
hundred.
Declan jumped to his feet from his push-up stance and bounced on the balls of his feet, throwing a few punches in the air and breathing heavily. Pulling a ragged towel off the edge of the metal bed in the four by eight cell, he wiped the sweat from his brow and chest as he heard a guard yell, "Open cell block C!"

A loud
clack
followed by the sound of a retracting door and the unmistakable jangle of a set of keys on the belt of a guard came from the cell block entrance below. As the sound of the gears reversing and the
clack
of the gate locking closed came, the guard yelled "Open cell twenty-four!"

Declan began to listen closer. Why was the guard coming to his cell? He finished toweling himself off and splashed some water on his face from the tiny, calcium stained sink that sat next to the cells toilet. Pulling on his faded navy blue shirt with the word
INMATE
clearly marked on the back and the right breast pocket, he buttoned it up as the guard arrived at the door.

"Alright, sunshine," the mustached man in the olive green Correctional Officer uniform said. "Roll it up, time to get going."

"I'm being moved?" Declan asked. "Where to?"

"You'll see when we get there."

Declan rolled up his bedding, grabbed the few library books he'd borrowed and stepped into his shoes as the guard held the cell door open. Stepping outside onto the metal catwalk that ran across the eight cells on the second level, Declan followed the guard to the stairwell and onto the concrete first floor.

"Dead man walking!" an inmate yelled from one of the top cells on the opposite side of the block. By now, Declan's involvement in bringing down Lorcan O'Rourke's smuggling operation was well known on the inside. Word had been put out to various parties within the prison community that he was to be taken out and that whoever managed to get the job done, would be rewarded by O'Rourke's partners who had lost a fortune.

The constant threat of murder had forced the prison officials to keep him constantly on the move between the medium security prison's twenty cell blocks and in a private cell away from the general population. Cell block C, where he was currently located, was the confinement block for inmates who for one reason or another needed to be kept separate, but even here, apparently the word was beginning to spread that the Irishman was a marked man.

Declan followed the guard out of the cell block and into one of the prison's main corridors, a smooth concrete hallway with faded yellow walls made of rough plaster stretched towards a windowless metal door at the end. They paused briefly as the guards in the control office of the prison opened the gates electronically, allowing them to pass. Moving into a twelve by twelve foyer that looked like the forward room of a submarine, they paused as the controllers locked one door behind them before opening the door in front of them that led out of the building. As a loud buzzer sounded, the guard took hold of the door and pulled it open, its weight evident in the tightening of his muscles as he pulled. Declan shielded his eyes from the bright daylight.

"C'mon," the guard said stepping out into the prison yard. Declan followed, holding his bed roll under one arm and his books under the other. Twelve foot high fences encircled with razor wire across the top surrounded them and in the distance beyond the cluster of gray buildings that made up the prison, Declan could see the smooth, twenty foot high metal walls and watchtowers that separated the prison from the residences and businesses of Norfolk, Massachusetts.

Wide concrete pathways stretched around the facility, crisscrossing each other as they led between buildings. As they walked, Declan wondered why the guard was alone. While MCI-Norfolk was a medium security prison, the inmates housed there were still violent offenders and it was abnormal for a guard to transport an inmate on his own. Looking closer at the man's uniform, he noticed the bars on the olive green collar.

"So, Captain is it? Where are we going?"

The man stopped, turned to face him and said, "To the warden's office. There are some people that want a word with you."

Declan felt a sinking feeling in his gut. He knew the United States would eventually get around to deporting him back to Ireland. He'd been imprisoned for three weeks while they worked out exactly what had happened in Boston and who exactly he was. He hadn't tried to hide it. From the onset, he'd given them his full name and any other information they'd asked for, but bureaucrats being bureaucrats, things still had to go through the official channels. In this case, the official channels didn't only involve the United States government, but the British government as well.

While he had no documented criminal background in the United Kingdom or in the Republic of Ireland, the fact that he had popped up in a US prison as an illegal immigrant and was involved in a violent series of events was sure to attract some suspicion and cause him more trouble once he was off the boat in Belfast. But there was nothing he could do about that now. He'd made a choice to help a man he considered a friend knowing full well that there was a chance things wouldn't turn out in his favor. All he could do now was grin and bear it, hoping all the while that things would somehow work out.

The captain stopped as they neared the front of the prison, arriving at a small gate beyond which a single lane cement walkway ran to a gray, split face block building with an arching roof and an architectural design that made it look like an asterisk. A metallic
cling
sounded as the latch on the gate was released remotely by someone in the building. The captain pushed the gate open and held it as Declan moved inside. In the two months he'd been at MCI-Norfolk, he'd never seen an inmate inside of the prison's administration building, not even to clean it as they did the rest of the facility.

At an exterior door the captain removed a set of keys from his belt and unlocked the door. "Set your bedroll here," he said. "You won't need it anymore." He slammed the door behind Declan as he entered. Inside, the building looked like a typical police station with desks pushed together in the center of the floor creating cubicle offices and multiple citations and awards posted on the walls. In a small lobby, a picture of the prison's warden hung over a plush leather sofa. In the far right hand corner of the square room, a set of steps led upwards to a closed wooden door with a brass shingle reading,
J, Sheldon Moore, Warden.

"This way," the captain said leading Declan through the maze of cubicles to the stairwell. Uniformed prison employees looked up from their desks as he walked by. The captain knocked on the wooden door at the top of the steps as they arrived and a voice inside said, "Come in."

The captain opened the door, standing aside for Declan to enter. When he was in, the captain closed the door and stood in front of it with his hands folded in front of him. Seated at a desk in the center of the room was the warden, a stout man with blonde hair, a ridiculous comb over and a thick mustache, twisting a toothpick between his teeth, and another man Declan didn't know in a suit and tie, with neatly combed black hair and a playboy smile.

With a question on his face, Declan walked further in. The office was octagon shaped and ornate by prison standards. Mahogany stained moldings crowned the ceiling and floor, a gray commercial grade carpet with specks of blue, red and white stretched from wall to wall and the desk, filing cabinets and gun locker, stocked with multiple rifles and shotguns, matched the dark moldings perfectly.

"Mr. McIver," the warden said. "Come in. Have a seat."

"I prefer to stand," Declan said.

"It wasn't a request, son." the warden said removing the toothpick from his mouth.

Declan took a seat opposite of the man in the suit in one of the two gray upholstered chairs. Inside the prison, the officials held all of the cards and regardless of his training and expertise, the odds of a successful escape were long. Besides, he had no desire to hurt innocent people, he'd seen enough of that to last the rest of his life.

"Now, the State of Massachusetts, represented by this man here," the warden said waving a hand towards the man in the suit seated next to Declan, "has told me that an order from the governor has come down granting your unconditional release. So congratulations, son, as much as I disagree with releasing someone, that as far as I can tell, took part in a gunfight in the middle of South Boston, torched a building causing millions of dollars in damages, ran a sports car at a high rate of speed through downtown Boston and then got into another gunfight in a historical district, that's what I've been ordered to do and I'm in no position to argue."

Declan nodded, doing his best not to seem surprised. He had no idea what the warden was talking about, but if it meant getting released, he was willing to play along.

"Mr. McIver," the man in the suit and tie said, standing from his chair. "My name is Matt Stacey. I'm an assistant state attorney for the southeastern region of Massachusetts and I've been charged by Governor Ryan with supervising your release. I'll make sure your property is returned to you and that you're set up with everything you'll need to get you safely back home, wherever that is."

"I understand," Declan said. He had no idea why a governor in the United States would grant his release, but he suspected it had something to do with Abaddon Kafni.

"Do you have any questions?" Stacey asked.

"No. Nothing comes to mind."

"Then I believe Warden Moore has some release papers for you."

The warden nodded and opened a file on his desk. Pulling out a form, he clicked open a pen and signed it before handing it over. "You're all set. Captain Broadmere will accompany you and Mr. Stacey to a private facility where you can shower and shave if you wish and then you'll be escorted to the front gate."