passed since the sun had set.
But it was much later when the door finally opened and the Intake Officer hurried in. He had Jamie’s trainers and a new T-shirt with him. He was also carrying another bottle of water. Jamie drank greedily while Joe talked. He wished the supervisor had thought to bring some food too.
“We must hurry,” he said. “Mr Koring has gone…”
“Where?”
“There’s a landing strip. A small plane. He’s picking up Mr Banes.”
Banes. It was the last name Jamie wanted to hear. He was instantly on his feet, pulling on the T-shirt, ready to go.
“My friends are close,” Feather went on. He glanced at his watch. “It is ten o’clock. At half past ten they will come. We must be ready by then.”
“What about Daniel?”
Feather took a small plastic bottle out of his pocket and unscrewed the cap. Jamie saw that it was filled with some sort of red syrup. “This contains chokecherry juice,” he explained. “It won’t harm you.” Before Jamie could stop him, he had squeezed it all over the side of Jamie’s face. Jamie put his hand to his skin and then examined his fingers. The juice looked exactly like blood. “I will take you to the medicine wing,” Feather said. “You must pretend you are hurt.” Jamie remembered what Baltimore had told him while they were having lunch. The medicine wing stood right up against the wall and served both sides of the prison. Now he understood what Feather was doing.
“The security cameras will see you,” Feather continued. “But the guards will see the blood and they won’t ask questions. There is nobody inside the medicine wing. In an emergency, they would expect me to call the nurses – but of course I won’t. We will be alone.”
“How do we get through to the Block?”
“Come now. I will tell you.”
The two of them left together. The juice had streaked all the way down the side of Jamie’s face and anyone watching him would assume that either he had been in a vicious fight or he had tried to kill himself. Joe Feather held onto him and, as they went down the empty corridor, Jamie staggered as if he could barely stand up. They came to a door which led out to the football pitch. Jamie already knew that none of the guards carried a key to this one. It could only be opened electronically from central control. He felt a camera high above, swivelling round to examine him. Would it work? Silence. Then a loud buzz and the lock clicked open. Joe helped him through. They were out!
It felt strange, crossing the football field in the artificial light of the arc lamps. The desert was pitch black. Tonight there was no moon. But the entire prison was a strange electric white, the razor-wire fence glittering all the way around the perimeter. Jamie could see the windows of the four units and thought of the boys he had met – Baltimore, Green Eyes, DV and the rest of them – and felt sorry that he was leaving them behind. They had made mistakes. They had done stupid things. But he had known them and he had thought none of them were really so bad.
The medicine wing rose up in front of them with the solid cinder-block wall stretching out behind. Joe Feather had a key to the door and he let Jamie in. They passed into a reception area with a desk and two small clinics leading off a narrow corridor behind. There was an eye chart on one wall, a couple of anti-drugs posters on the other. Jamie noticed another camera watching him from the corner. How could the two of them do anything when they were being followed all the time?
Joe Feather knelt down and pretended to examine his wound.
“The camera can see us but it can’t hear,” he whispered. “They will expect me to use the phone, to call the nurse. I will pretend to do that. You must take this…” Jamie felt something metallic being pressed into his hand. “This is the master key,” Feather continued. “It opens the cells in all four units: North, South, East and West. It should also open the cells in the Block, but I can’t be sure of that. If it doesn’t, there’s nothing more we can do.”
“How do I get to the Block?”
“There is a door at the end of the corridor.”
Jamie glanced round, at the same letting out a groan of pain for the sake of the camera. It was true. There was a single door just past the two clinics. And – of course – he should have been able to tell from the layout of the building that the corridor was a sort of tunnel, running directly through the outer wall.
Meanwhile, Joe Feather had gone over to the telephone and tapped out a number. Somewhere inside the prison complex, other supervisors would be watching his every move. The first rule of prison life was that there should be no surprises. Every minute of the day had to be exactly the same as the day before. The fact that a boy had been hurt and needed medical aid was a break from routine and the other guards would be on full alert. Feather was pretending to talk to the nurse at the end of the line but in fact he hadn’t been connected. He was actually talking to Jamie.
“I’ve fixed the generator,” Joe continued. “The electric generator in the yard. It has an override system. Sometimes we have to shut it down for repair. It will cut out very soon now and it will take them time to bring the emergency generator on-line. That will give us at least a minute with no cameras, no lights and all the prison doors automatically set to manual. That is when you will deal with your friend. He’s in cell fourteen.”
“Won’t there be guards?”
“There’s only one supervisor on duty during the graveyard shift. Leave him to me.”
“Why are you doing all this?” Jamie asked.
Joe looked up from the telephone and allowed himself a brief smile. “I already told you. You’re one of the Five.”
“Yes. But one of the five what? What does it mean?”
Without any warning, the lights blinked out.
“Move!” Joe commanded.
He had a torch and flicked it on. Jamie followed him down the corridor and waited as he unlocked the door at the end with a key of his own. Everything was pitch black but the beam of the torch picked up a few details as Joe swung it from side to side: a unit almost identical to his own; a corridor lined with cell doors; a table bolted into the floor; a bank of monitors; a supervisor already rising to his feet, reaching for the canister of CS gas attached to his belt.
“What-?” the man began.
Joe hit him with his torch. The light beam threw crazy shadows across the far wall. Jamie heard the supervisor grunt. He folded forward and collapsed.
“Go!” Joe was already dragging the unconscious man back into his seat. There was a paperback book on the desk in front of him and Joe was arranging him so that when the lights came back on, it would look as if he was leaning forward, reading a page. Jamie looked around him, trying to find his way. Joe threw him the torch. He caught it and ran forward.
The cell numbers were clearly printed beside each door. He had to move quickly. As soon as the emergency generator kicked in, he would be seen and – worse – the doors would be sealed electronically. He could hear shouting. It was coming from behind the locked doors. Some of the kids must have been awake and now found themselves in total darkness… a new experience for them. They were pounding their fists against the doors. He wondered if the same thing was happening in the units on the other side of the wall.
He reached number fourteen and, using the torchlight, eased the key into the lock and turned it. With a sense of relief, he felt the lock open. He slid the door aside and stepped inside.
There was an eleven-year-old black boy lying on a bunk, wearing a T-shirt and shorts. He was small for his age but strong and wiry. He had short, curly hair and round, white eyes. There was a plaster on his wrist, just over the vein, and he was very thin. But otherwise he seemed unhurt. He was already awake and staring at the figure who had burst into his room. Jamie slid the door shut again – but not quite the whole way. He turned the torch on himself.
“Don’t be scared,” he said. “I’m a friend.”
“Scott?” The boy on the bunk thought he’d recognized him and for a moment Jamie was thrown. But, of course, he wasn’t wearing the glasses. And in the half-light it would have been easy to mistake him for his brother, even with his short hair.
