The Right Side of Wrong (26 page)

Chapter Forty-two

Ned had memorized the map, but he took it out of his shirt pocket and kept one eye in the smudged lines as they crept down the hallway. He counted doors on the right to orient himself, and breathed a sigh of relief when the marks on the map matched the actual openings they passed. The tally was correct when they reached the corner and turned right.

The prison was designed in a huge three-story square, with cells on the inside facing a bare concrete courtyard where prisoners exercised in the sunlight. The bleak outside wall of the square consisted of offices, solitary confinement cells, interrogation rooms, and unadorned spaces for everyday use, such as bathrooms, kitchen, and dining room.

Unfortunately, Cody's cell was on the square exactly opposite from where they stood, so they were forced to traverse the entire length of the left side's ground floor. The three men moved without a word. It was early enough that most of the prisoners were still asleep in dirty eight-by-ten-foot cells.

The air was thick with the reek of unwashed bodies, piss, and shit. Flies buzzed through the bars without impediment. Roaches crawled on the walls and floor, and crunched underfoot.

Their luck held. Not a guard was in sight so early in the morning. This was the hour when generals traditionally initiated attacks, when men slept heavily and were less inclined to wake quickly. No one noticed their passing, at least until a prisoner jerked up as they passed a cell crammed with so many men that some had to sleep sitting upright. A whispered exclamation caused his cellmates to stir, but the trio had already passed, moving swiftly along the corridor.

Three
Americanos
wearing Stetsons was an unusual sight in the depressing jail. Behind them, stirring sounds and murmured conversations told them that the cells were coming alive.

“Mr. Ned.”

“I know. I hear 'em. It's the third cell on the right after we turn the corner.”

Ten steps later, John backed against the wall, peeked around the bend, and found another empty corridor. Rats and mice darted across the open floor.

Quiet as a well-oiled watch, the determined trio ducked around the corner and rushed to Cody's cell.

“Cody!” Ned's heart beat so hard he thought it would explode.

Shadowy figures snapped awake and sat up, two and three men to each vermin-infested bunk. Someone coughed quietly. It was so dark they couldn't distinguish the inmates swinging their legs over the sides. Ned's head reeled when the floor shimmered, then waved in the darkness. It took a moment to realize people were packed in so tightly there was no empty floor space at all.

“Here.” Tom handed him a metal Eveready two-cell flashlight.

Grateful, Ned found the small red spotlight button above the on-off switch with his thumb. The light clicked on and he played the beam around the cell as men covered their eyes. Roaches scurried and unidentifiable insects leaped from one man to another. None of the prisoners were Cody.

“Oh lordy. He ain't here. You think they moved him already?”

Shading their eyes against the sudden glare, the men behind the bars began to talk. Ned turned to Bell. “What are they saying?”

“Hang on a minute.” He spoke in hushed tones to the men inside.

They drifted close to the bars and Ned worried that someone might reach through. Old habits learned in the Lamar County courthouse had kept him safe for years. Ned rested his hand on the pistol butt at his waist. He didn't want to risk injury from an inmate.

The whispered exchange was disheartening. Bell translated the information. “They never put him back in here after y'all left yesterday. They say he's in one of the solitary cells, but they don't know which one.”

Ned groaned deep in his throat in barely contained frustration and faced the line of blank doors across from the cells.

More soft voices carried from the cell as Bell conversed with the prisoners.

“They say he wasn't walked back past here, so they don't think he's on this side, or on this hall. Ned, there's two sides on this level, and eight more in the two stories above us. There ain't no telling where he is.”

“Guerrera knows.”

“Oh, lordy,” John said. “Now we got to go back and get him.”

“Told you we didn't need to cut his throat,” Ned said. “Yet.”

Chapter Forty-three

Bell and the cell's occupants spoke softly as a low buzz like that of a giant beehive filled the air around them. “They'll pass the word about what we're doing, so maybe it won't get too loud too quick.”

John more than heard the jail fill with conversation that almost immediately began to build. “How are they gonna do that?”

“You watch. The news will beat us back around to Guerrera, especially after I told them how we'd left him.”

Anxious to the point of panic, John led the way. “Let's go, then.”

Bell was right. An almost physical wave washed before them as whispered conversations passed the word. Since John still hadn't seen any guards, he reasoned this was the time when people were sleeping deeply, or they were extremely bored.

Maybe their luck would hold.

Guerrera was still trussed like a turkey when they rushed back into the reception area, but he'd managed to wriggle against the closed door. When John gave it a hard shove, the steel banged off Guerrera's head. While Bell watched the hallway and Ned covered the front door, John yanked the bandana from Guerrera's mouth, untied his feet, and released the belt.

“Spit that rag out,” John ordered, yanking Guerrera to his feet. Unsteady, he leaned against John, and then feeling brave, planted his feet and shouldered him in the midsection in a vain attempt to knock the deputy off his feet.

It was no match.

Angry and sweating heavily, John grabbed his cuffed arms and slammed Guerrera face first against the cinder block wall. That done, he wrenched the
capitán
's arms so that he bent forward with a hiss of pain, exactly as he'd ordered his deputy to do with Cody the day before.

“You listen, mister. I ain't got time to fool with you. Do what I say and keep quiet or so
help
me I'll finish breaking that jaw.”

Cowed and beaten, Guerrera turned his face upward to John. His nose was broken, one eye had begun to swell, and blood flowed from a gaping gash on his chin.

“
Si. Si!”

“Now that you're listening,” Bell said. “We want you to take us to Cody right now! You know where he is, and so help me if things start to get out of hand, you'll be the first one to go down.”

“
No comprende
.” Guerrera acted as if didn't understand.

Bell repeated himself in a blaze of sharp Spanish, and Guerrera finally admitted defeat. “Third floor. Back right corner. As far as possible from the entrance.”

Again Bell translated the directions. This time John grabbed Guerrera's cuffed hands and pushed him out in front. “Lead the way.”

Back in the hallway, Guerrera lurched right. “Uh, uh.” Ned shoved the hand-drawn map under the man's nose. “We know where we're going, but you're gonna take us this way and up them stairs in the corner.”

The other direction led to the same place, but at least Ned was familiar with the left-hand hallway, and he wanted Guerrera to know right off they were in control.

The overwrought procession once again moved out, hurrying toward the stairs that led to the third floor. Conversations literally buzzed like a wasp's nest.

Fuga de la cárcel!
Jailbreak!

In his mid-sixties and completely out of shape, Ned was winded by the time they reached the third floor landing with their prisoner. Again in the lead, John opened the door and gave them the nod that the coast was clear. They stepped into an exact copy of the first floor, except this time open cells lined both sides of the building.

Guerrera ducked left, but John kept a tight grip on his wrists. The news had somehow already reached top floor and shabby, broken prisoners lined against the bars on the double row of cells, waiting on the raiding party.

As they passed, hands reached out to the Texans. At first Ned was frightened, but he quickly realized the prisoners wanted to get their hands on Guerrera. He didn't care what happened to the man, but at that moment, he still needed him.

At least until he found Cody.

Their luck finally ran out as they reached the next turn. A sleepy guard stepped around the corner and directly into Guerrera. Recognizing his commander, he jerked tall and straight, then recoiled at the sight of his commander's damaged face and the Americans behind him. The guard opened his mouth to yell, but John's fist slammed squarely into his nose with the force of a sledgehammer. The guard went down without a sound. Guerrera's feet tangled up with the fallen man and he almost tumbled down himself, nearly jerking John off his feet.

A hand darted through the iron bars quick as the strike of a water moccasin, and when it retreated, Guerrera recoiled, gagging, and fell backward against John.

Blood jetted from the severed artery in his neck as if from a fire hose.

“Oh my lord.” John gasped in a shocked, clear voice as Guerrera slipped bonelessly to the floor.

“Goddamn it!” Ned quickly knelt beside Guerrera, grabbed a handful of hair, and yanked his head upright. The man's panicked eyes told him they both knew Guerrera had only seconds left. “That solid door at the end, right?”

Guerrera thrashed and gurgled.

“You know what I'm saying! Make it right before you die, you sorry sonofabitch!
Which
one of them doors down there?”

Guerrera jerked sideways, trembling as the same arm struck again through the bars, this time driving a sharpened blade deep into the
capitán's
side. Instead of pulling back into the cell, the prisoner worked the makeshift knife deep inside, wriggling it forcefully, doing as much damage as possible.

“God
damn
it!!” Ned hauled Guerrera's body out of reach along the concrete floor.

At the same time, John kicked hard and broke the man's arm. The entire floor came alive when the prisoner shrieked and fell back into his cell.

Without responding to Ned's desperate question, Guerrera shuddered. His eyes rolled back in his head.

Shouts in Spanish echoed down the halls. Confused guards called back and forth. Prisoners filled with vengeance cried out the same statement over and over in a cacophony of rejoicing.

Guerrera es muerto!

Guerrera es muerto!

John and Ned didn't need any translation this time.

Guerrera is dead!

“Yeah, and so are we.” Bell's wide eyes blazed defiance.

Chapter Forty-four

“We need to run, Mr. Ned.” John was up and rushing down the corridor before Ned thought to answer.

It was almost the same statement he'd hollered that night in the bottoms when they carried Top and Pepper out of danger. The similarity wasn't lost on Ned.

Danger was obvious. They charged down the exact middle of the corridor to avoid the forest of hands bristling through bars. The jail's designers had estimated exactly how much space was needed to safely pass between the cells, and the Texas lawmen had only inches to spare. Finally, at the corner, the cells were no longer open cages, but instead were behind solid walls.

Over the din, Ned heard shouting as the guards reacted. All attempts at being quiet were long gone. Ned evaluated four ominous blank doors. “Cody!”

“
Guerrera es muerto
!” drowned his voice.

All three men took up the cry at the same time to be heard over the discord. “CODY!”

Instead of an answer, loud thumps reverberated in the hallway as the doors beside them were kicked from the inside. “This one!” John held out his hand. “Keys.”

“Dammit, they're on Guerrera's belt.” Ned looked back down at the corridor to find the
capitán's
body pulled against one of the cells. Hands plucked at the corpse like feeding piranha, and above it, a bearded prisoner fumbled a key into the cell's lock.

With a disgusted look on his face, Bell rushed down the corridor. Before he reached them, the cell door slammed open, spewing a crowd of rough, desperate men.

“
Claves!
” Bell shouted.

Keys!

With an expert flip of his wrist, one prisoner ignored him, twisted a second lock, and yanked the door open. Another wave of men boiled free. It was only the beginning. Like bulls, a crowd surged toward Bell, but when he raised the BAR, they stopped. Even if they didn't recognize the big automatic rifle by name, the very design announced that it was designed to kill people in volume.

It was too late anyway. The keys had already opened another cell and quickly passed hand to hand away from the increasingly desperate lawmen trying to save Cody.

“
Alto
!” With the rifle still trained on the escapees, Bell retreated toward his men. “The keys are gone!”

Gunshots rang out around the corner.

Voices howled amidst the riot when the guards began shooting the escaping prisoners.

John set his feet and kicked the metal door. It didn't budge. He kicked again with the same results. “Cody! Back up!” He aimed the shotgun at the door frame instead of the lock, and pulled the trigger. The report hammered their eardrums, dampening Ned's hearing. The full charge of buckshot, nine .32-caliber pellets, destroyed the metal frame, but didn't completely release the lock.

“Again!”

The second shot wasn't enough either, but the third mangled the metal enough that the door sagged open.

What rushed through the door wasn't Cody. An apparition of violence exploded into view. A bald man nearly John's size, shirtless upper body completely covered in jail-house tattoos, was finally free after many, many years of torture and incarceration.

There was a reason his eyes were wide, dark, and devoid of emotion.

They were the eyes of criminal insanity.

The hugely muscled Mexican slammed into John, knocking the surprised deputy back into the cinderblock wall with the sound of a raw steak hitting concrete. He swung a fist that would have torn John's head off his shoulders had it connected, but John parried with the shotgun to block the blow.

The scarred giant's knuckles broke against the stock with the sound of a snapping chicken neck. The pain didn't faze him.

In the gray light of early morning, neither Ned nor Bell had a clear shot. It was all between the two big men, as Bell kept the mayhem at bay behind them.

The babbling prisoner grabbed the twelve-gauge, trying to lever it from John's hands. Instead of yanking and pulling, for the second time that morning John did the opposite of what most people expect.

He attacked.

Using his sole advantage, John kneed the Mexican in the groin and pressed forward, cracking the stock into the monster's cheek as the man woofed in pain. Biceps bulging, John roared with the effort and jammed his shotgun across the man's neck.

It was a fight for survival, violent and rabid.

With his adversary pinned against the wall, John kneed him again and again in the crotch until the man released his hold on the weapon. When it gave, John slammed his forehead into the prisoner's nose. Blood erupted in a torrent. John twisted the shotgun free and slammed the butt sideways into the man's broken nose again. The third time he pounded a direct strike between the eyes with the butt, driving all of his power into a killing blow. An audible crunch closed the encounter. The prisoner's legs became rubber.

He smacked face first onto the floor and died.

The deafening report of a shotgun once again echoed in the close confines. John jumped to face the next threat. He was relieved to see Ned shuck another shell into his twelve-gauge and fire a second charge into a door frame directly beside them. This time when the door opened, Cody's swollen face appeared.

Relief washed through all of them as Ned grabbed Cody in a quick bear hug.