the Second Horseman (2006) (2 page)

Brandon continued to follow along obediently, trying to figure out what it was going to be tonight. Probably a glitch in the septic system needed checking out and Daly'd wanted to wait until there was some good deep mud to make it even more unpleasant.

Of course, Brandon had thought about breaking out. A lot, actually. Particularly the day he'd spent cleaning roach carcasses out of the kitchen after the exterminators had gone. It wouldn't have been all that tough. The problem was less how to get past the walls, though, than how to negotiate the miles of wilderness and rural countryside that surrounded them. But even that was surmountable. The real issue was that those diamonds everyone thought he had didn't exist, and his sentence wasn't quite long enough to trade in for a life on the run. The best -- only -- course that made any sense was to keep out of trouble, talk loudly about Jesus whenever the warden was within earshot, and keep his fingers crossed for early parole.

He shaded his eyes and looked up at the closest guard tower. It was empty. He slowed a bit, searching unsuccessfully fo
r h
uman silhouettes in the other visible tower and then trying to make some sense of their absence. Typical for him, he was concentrating so hard that he didn't see Daly's nightstick until it hit him in the stomach. Not hard enough to drop him to his knees, but easily hard enough to double him over and make him gasp for breath.

"Move!" Daly said in an unusually quiet voice.

When Brandon just stood there bent at the waist and slowly sinking into the mud, the guard moved behind him and used the nightstick on the back of his legs. He felt a flair of pain, but again not enough to send him to the ground. Just enough to prompt him forward.

Brandon allowed himself to be herded toward a narrow metal gate that had, at some time in the distant past, probably been used for deliveries. When they reached it, he turned toward Daly, who was now only an outline, backlit by the glow of the spotlights behind him. The shadow of his arm moved and Brandon flinched, but the guard was just holding something out.

"What . . . ," Brandon gasped, still under the effect of the blow to his stomach. "Is that --"

"Take it," Daly said, shoving it into Brandon's hands. It turned out to be an elaborate cell phone. The large screen was dark, but when he pushed a button, it came glowing to life. What was going on? Daly had never outright beat him before -- no one had. And the phone . . .

He spun around when he heard the rattle and creak of a key turning in an old lock and watched Daly open the gate and then step aside.

"Sir? What are --"

"Out."

"What?"

"Step through the gate, Brandon."

"I don't think that's . . . Sir, if I've done something to --"

"Get the fuck out!" Again, not a shout. More of an enraged hiss. As though he didn't want to be heard.

Brandon didn't move. Had Daly gotten bored with his petty humiliations and decided on something a little more drastic? Was he going to force him outside the walls and then sound the alarm?

"Sir, I don't think --"

Daly's hand shot out and closed around Brandon's throat hard enough to cut off the breathing he'd just managed to get back under control.

"What don't you think, boy?"

Brandon grabbed the man's wrist, but it just felt like wet stone.

"That's right! You don't think. You're just another piece of shit crook who was too stupid not to get caught."

Daly moved forward and Brandon found himself being pushed back. He released the man's wrist and put a hand out, just missing the gate and instead getting a handful of the wet, crumbling wall. A final shove and he fell, landing on his back in the soft mud. He jumped immediately to his feet and lunged toward the gate, only to lose his footing and fall again as Daly slammed it shut. A moment later he was on his knees with his hands wrapped around the bars, watching the guard back away.

"Mr. Daly," he shouted through the sound of heavy raindrops falling to earth around him. "Open the gate! Let me back in!"

The guard continued to back away, his teeth flashing when he passed through a narrow beam of light. It was the first time Brandon had ever seen him smile.

Finally he stopped and, still staring directly at Brandon, swung his nightstick right into that well-tended widow's peak. He staggered to the right, then a bit to the left, and crumpled to the ground.

Brandon just knelt there, his wet hand
s g
oing numb around the cold bars. This wasn't good. Not good at all. He was soaked through with rain and mud, two feet on the wrong side of a prison gate, with a mind devoid of intelligent thoughts. He craned his neck and looked behind him through the water cascading over his glasses. The dim light bordering the wall quickly faded to black as the prison's lights got lost in the rain and distance, but he knew that somewhere out there the forest started. How large and how dense it was he could only guess. He'd never bothered to find out. What would have been the point? He'd made his decision to serve out his term a long time ago.

Finally, he pulled himself to his feet, giving the gate a hard tug to confirm that it was indeed locked and taking one last look at the dazed guard. A few deep, calming breaths did absolutely nothing to help him grasp what had happened. The only thing that he knew was that he was cold and scared. And that everyone would think he'd attacked Daly and escaped . . .

The phone!

He spun and dropped to his knees, crawling around until he found it partially submerged but still glowing green. He wiped it off and began scrolling through the menu
,
trying to find a number. Nothing. Why would Daly give this to him? If he were caught with it, there would be questions. He hit redial. Nothing. "Shit!"

The rain was coming down even harder now and he could hear thunder that with his luck would bring lightning.

The bottom line was that he was screwed. Fully and completely screwed. Making a run for it would end with him being easily caught and then screwed some more. Giving up would start his screwing a few hours sooner. Maybe getting hit by lightning wouldn't be so bad after all. "Shit! Shit! Shit!"

His mom had once told him there were always options, it was just a matter of whether or not you were smart enough to figure them out. He'd be willing to bet that piece of philosophy came from having never been on the wrong side of a prison wall in a Noah-and-the-ark level storm.

He struggled to his feet again and began backing slowly away from the gate, watching the towers as they came into view. Somehow he wasn't surprised to see that they were manned again.

"Hey!" he shouted, holding his hands in the air. Another step back put him into the beam of one of the spotlights and he shielded his eyes with the phone he was still holding. "Hey! I give up! I'm not trying to escape! This is all a mis--"

The crack of a rifle shot and the screech of a round going past his ear made him duck, but he managed to keep his hands up.

"Goddammit!" he shouted, trying to be heard over the rain. "Stop shooting! It's me! Brandon! I'm --"

The second round went by his other ear and he heard it hit the mud behind him with a sickening splat. He just turned and ran.

Chapter
TWO

"It's a little late to turn back now. For everything."

Edwin Hamdi was visibly nervous. Agitated even. His suit and tie exuded quiet dignity and European tailoring but couldn't hide the subtly fidgeting hands and the way his dark skin stretched over his cheekbones. Richard Scanlon poured two scotches and handed one to Hamdi before crossing the expansive office to a grouping of leather chairs and sofas in the corner.

Outside the closed door, the rest of the building was dark. Scanlon had set security at a very high level -- not wanting to repeat the errors of other government contractors and agencies that made the papers for misplacing critical hard drives, documents, and God knows what else. The entire complex was meticulously evacuated and locked down at seven every evening. No one but he and the people working directly with hi
m a
t that moment had the authority to stay

"How's he doing?" Hamdi asked.

Scanlon looked at his watch. "It's just started. I'm sure everything's fine."

"You're sure? You're not getting updates?"

Scanlon shook his head calmly. "I'm not an operational person, Edwin. I signed off on the plan and now I've handed it over to people with experience in this kind of thing." He pointed to the phone on his desk. "They'll call me if there's a problem or if they need to make a change."

Hamdi took a sip of his drink, his lips tightening either in reaction to the liquor or extreme disapproval. Probably the latter.

"This is a mistake, Richard. There's no way to control him. Even before all this, the situation was turning unpredictable. I'm beginning to question the likelihood of our succeeding in this."

Scanlon nodded thoughtfully and stared into the crystal glass in his hand. Hamdi was a man of almost unfathomable contradictions. Abstractly brilliant, yet focused to the point of single-mindedness. Outwardly dignified, but deeply passionate.

Hamdi's Egyptian father had run a company that exported cotton to the United States and it was through that business that he'd met the American woman he married.

Young Edwin had spent most of his childhood on the move, suspended -- perhaps trapped -- between the two cultures before landing in a New England boarding school. After he'd graduated, he'd gone on to Harvard and then to Oxford, where he'd earned a doctorate in Middle Eastern studies.

Despite his American heritage and the fact that he had no apparent religious convictions, there was something fundamentally different about him. Something hard to come to grips with. A subversive undercurrent that occasionally surfaced, but then was almost immediately gone. It made Scanlon question whether the people of the West and East would ever be able to truly understand and trust each other when he himself couldn't fully trust this man he'd known for so many years. But then, faith wasn't something that had ever come easily to him.

"I'll be honest with you, Richard. I'm beginning to regret having approved this. You've been incredibly effective at bringing in some of the best and the brightest to work on this . . . project. How is he going to mix with the men you already have in place?"

Hamdi had an uncanny ability to see the gray in any given situation, but was blind to the gray in any given individual. To hi
m c
ompetence was measured in the weight of one's degrees, the cut of one's hair, the amount of starch in one's stark white shirt. Anyone who didn't display these symbols of conventional success was somehow defective in his mind.

Of course, in this case he was right. Brandon Vale was defective.

"You're right, Edwin. They probably won't be able to keep up."

Hamdi leaned forward, his voice rising for a moment before he became aware of it. "Even with impossible responsibilities resting on our shoulders, facing a mission that simply cannot be allowed to fail, you enjoy antagonizing me, don't you, Richard?"

Scanlon smiled and took a sip of his scotch. The problem with doctors of Middle Eastern studies was that they tended to get a bit lost when faced with situations that had no historical precedent. It was hard to be too critical, though. Hamdi had the imagination and the courage to embark on this fool's errand, and there was no question that he could make things happen that Scanlon himself couldn't.

"If you have another suggestion, Edwin, I'm listening."

Hamdi didn't respond, instead turning and staring at a blank section of wall
,
reminded of the fact that it was one of his rare failures that had left them in the dangerous situation they were now in.

He had promised that Scanlon's company would win a two hundred million dollar contract from Homeland Security, but that was before the terrorist attack on the Mall of America brought security funding to a grinding halt. There was nothing like pictures of little American girls separated from their limbs to send politicians scrambling. Currently -- and for the foreseeable future -- virtually all Homeland Security contracts were on hold until the completion of yet another lengthy government inquiry that would ultimately recommend even more bureaucratic layering and complexity.

So now his and Hamdi's backs were against the wall, and Brandon was the best thing -- the only thing -- they'd been able to come up with.

"You've never been one to dwell on decisions that have already been made, Edwin. Why don't you tell me what's on your mind?"

Hamdi turned back toward Scanlon, but didn't seem to be able to fully focus. "I think you know what's on my mind, Richard."

"Do I?"

"I want to be certain that we have the same understanding of Brandon Vale's usefulness to us."

"Yes?"

"He's a tool. That's all. No. That's not entirely correct. He's a syringe. Precise, effective, and safe -- as long as you remember to discard it after use."

Hamdi didn't have an identifiable accent, but his speech had an odd cadence and lyrical quality that had come from a life straddling Egypt, the States, and England, and that gave everything he said additional weight. Combined with his natural charisma and intensity, it was difficult at times not to be mesmerized by him.