knowledge of the prison if it was to be done without help from the outside. Hamlin had the credentials and, in his role as prison engineer, had perhaps also had the opportunity to come up with something.The more obstacles Stratton could break down the better chance he had of finding a way to Durrani.
Nothing was impossible and Stratton felt confident that if he had the time he could at least devise a plan. Successfully carrying it out would be another matter, of course. The point was that escape wasn’t impossible. You just had to be smart enough to work it out. There was a risk in involving Hamlin but since Stratton had nothing else to go on but the few hours he had spent in the man’s company he decided to rely on his instincts.
Stratton turned his attention to the heavy steel door with its thick rubber seam surrounding it. ‘You know these doors are sensitive to external pressure?’ he asked.
Hamlin looked at him oddly. ‘I know just about everything there is to know about this place, including these doors. I service the machinery that maintains the pressure tanks, remember?’
Stratton looked at him soberly. ‘So I’m right.’
‘It don’t take a genius to figure that out, considering there ain’t any locks. Day one I calculated the difference between the inside and outside pressure and at its lowest there’s over eight tons keeping that door closed. It would take you, me and a herd of Percherons to shift it, and only if there was a handle strong enough to tie them to which there ain’t.’
‘Unless the pressure was equalised.’
Hamlin smirked. ‘That’s what everyone spends day two trying to figure out. The pressure in every corner of this entire rabbit warren is controlled from the OCR and even the operators couldn’t override the system without tripping a whole bunch of safety devices, procedures, airlocks, alarms and what-you-gots.’
Stratton didn’t seem perturbed by Hamlin’s negativity. ‘Way I understand it is there are a pair of sensors that monitor the different pressures either side. Those sensors are inside the actual door.’
Hamlin scrutinised Stratton more closely. ‘It took me till near the end of day three to figure that out.’
‘If the sensors detect the pressure on one side equalising with that on the inside they’ll automatically compensate,’ Stratton continued.
‘Unless they’re overridden by the OCR which is what happens every time the door is opened . . . I know what you’re thinking. Same thing everyone else does eventually. How to manipulate the sensors? There’s only one problem, though—’
‘And that’s the reason you’ve never been able to figure out how to do it,’ Stratton interrupted.‘You don’t know precisely where the sensors are.’
Hamlin was growing fascinated with Stratton’s line of speculation and he moved closer, his gravelly voice low. ‘That’s right,’ he said, staring into Stratton’s eyes. ‘If you did, and if you had the right tools, you might be able to isolate the “inside” sensor and make the “outside” one think the pressure inside was higher than what it actually is.’
‘And if that could be achieved the system would compensate by decreasing the inside pressure.’
‘And when it drops below that of the outside, the door’ll pop open . . . Nice theory, ain’t it? . . . So far that brings you up to date with me.’
‘Unless I knew precisely where the sensor was,’ Stratton said.
Hamlin leaned back to look at Stratton from a broader perspective, his expression a mixture of surprise and suspicion.
‘You got a pen?’ Stratton asked. ‘Better still, the tip of a small blade?’
Hamlin continued to study Stratton, trying to make up his mind about him. The guy was either full of shit or he had something very interesting to offer. There was only one way to find out.
Hamlin got to his feet, went to his desk, felt the back of one of the legs and opened a compartment that had been cleverly carved into it. He pulled out a thin strip of metal that had been fashioned into a blade the length of a pen, with string wrapped around one end to form a haft. He handed it to Stratton who got to his feet, faced the door and rubbed the pads of his fingers gently along the seal. Hamlin moved to his side, studying the seal as if he might have missed something the hundred or more times he had meticulously examined it in the past.
‘You’ve noticed these small flaps in the seal?’ Stratton said, poking the tip of the blade into one of the creases and prising it open. ‘They go all the way around.’
‘Sure. They’re breathers. Otherwise the seals could blow up like balloons if there was a pressure spike. It’s where the hiss comes from when the door opens.’
‘And you know there’s another seal inside this one.’
‘The operating seals, one either side. I’ve seen these doors stripped down.’
‘Did you notice that the operating seals don’t have any of these breathers?’
‘That’s because the sensors are inside them. That’s obvious. But it wouldn’t have to be no bigger than a pinhead. And if you didn’t know exactly where it was you’d never be able to isolate it without ripping out the entire seal - by which time it would no longer operate and you’d be stuck until a team of engineers came down to get you out.’
‘The engineers know where the sensors are because they have to service them on occasion.’
‘Sure.They just never let me in on that secret,’ Hamlin said, starting to get irritated.
‘What if I said I knew exactly where the inside sensor was?’
‘How the hell would you know that?’
‘I got friends,’ Stratton said, keeping his voice low. ‘I used to be into sat diving. When certain old buddies learned I was heading for Styx they made sure I got a few details they happened to have on this place in case I could use them. I don’t know how much use it is,’ he added, stepping back to look at the door and then at Hamlin. ‘What would you do if you could get the other side of this door?’ he asked, tossing out a little bait.
Hamlin remained very much unsure of his new cellmate. ‘I want nothin’ to do with puttin’ the hits on Gann.’
‘So you’re saying that even if we could open this door without anyone knowing, it wouldn’t be of interest to you?’
Hamlin sniffed the bait and found his mouth watering a little.
Stratton read Hamlin’s silence to suggest he would be very interested.
‘The inside or high-pressure sensor is dead centre on the door-hinge side,’ Stratton said, rubbing the spot. ‘If we could cut the outer seal just here, then cut into the operating seal, isolate the sensor with a cup of some kind, increase the pressure inside the cup . . . bingo!’
Hamlin was with him every step of the way. ‘We could do that easily with a small electric pump.’
‘You can get a pump?’
‘We’re at the bottom of the ocean. Pumps we got.’ But Hamlin was still very unsure about a lot of other things. He leaned forward to whisper over the music. ‘You open this door, you just got more doors.You got cameras too. Anyone in OCR, the warden’s office or the guardroom sees you and that’s it. They’ll seal you off wherever you are and do what they did in the galley.’
‘Then I suppose I’d need to know where Gann was when I opened the door.’
As the notion took root Hamlin’s thoughts turned to his own purposes rather than Stratton’s. He was hooked on the idea but tried not to show it. If he could get through the door he didn’t give a damn what Stratton wanted to do. He knew exactly where
Stratton sighed dramatically as part of his charade. ‘I guess the theory is fine but the practical side would be pretty impossible,’ he said, backing off and sitting on his bed.
Hamlin sat down opposite, watching his room-mate and still trying to figure him out. ‘But if you could? You beat Gann to death and then walk back into your cell? You ain’t gettin’ any further.’
‘Maybe you’re not the only one with an escape plan.’
‘Who said I had a plan?’
‘You did.’
‘I said I’d like to prove ’em wrong. That could mean a lotta different things.’
Stratton looked away as if he’d grown tired of Hamlin’s games.
‘So you’ve been here five minutes and you’ve got an escape plan,’ Hamlin scoffed.
‘Like I said . . .’
‘Yeah, you got friends.’
‘Let’s just forget it.’
