agent. All you needed to do is-”
“First of all,” Vail said, “that’s not a question. But you’re right. It’s dumb. I could’ve picked up the goddamn phone and made that call myself.”
“You’re cursing. And you’re definitely stressed out. This isn’t good, is it?”
“No.”
“So what’s the deal? Why didn’t you want to make that call?”
“Robby. This isn’t helping.” Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Talking about this is difficult enough. But over the phone…
“Sorry. I’m- I’ve only got a few minutes ’cause I’m still on that case and-”
The door opened and Dixon poked her head out. “You coming?”
Vail twisted the phone away from her mouth. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
The door closed and Vail turned her attention back to Robby.
“It’s not earth-shattering. It’s-it’s something I’d much rather tell you in person, not over a phone. But-”
“Yeah,” Robby said, his voice muffled. “I’ll be right there. Put him in a room. Give me a minute.” Then, back into the phone: “Karen. I don’t mean to be short. But get to the point. What do you need help with?”
Shit. I can’t bare my soul and summarize this under pressure. If it would make a difference in the case, I’d do it. But it won’t. “It goes back to when I was a field agent in New York. But it’s a long story. It’ll have to wait.”
“You sure? Seems that it-whatever it is-is really bothering you. I can probably break away in a couple hours. Will that work? Are you in danger?”
“There’s really nothing you can do. I just wanted to talk things through. Besides, if the offender wanted to kill me, he could’ve done it already.”
“Jesus Christ, Karen. I definitely don’t like the sound of that. If your safety is-”
“Let’s not do this,” Vail said, pinching her forehead with two fingers. “I can take care of myself, you know that. Don’t worry about it.”
“Don’t worry about it?”
“I love you, Robby. I promise I’ll be okay.”
“Love you, too. But if I can help in any way, you call me. I’ll get someone to cover for me or-I’ll work something out.”
“You just started with DEA. I’m not going to jeopardize your job. I’ll be fine. Really. I’ll talk to you soon.”
She ended the call, then wondered what gave her the confidence to guarantee that all would be okay. Who am I fooling?
Vail pushed back into the room and sat down beside Dixon in front of the screen, where urban scenes continued to roll by.
“Everything okay?” Dixon asked, keeping her gaze on the video.
“Yeah.” No. Though she knew the only person who could help her was Mike Hartman, she had desperately wanted to share the story with Dixon. But Vail was no longer in the mood to discuss it because it would require an explanation that she did not feel like getting into. She would be talking with Hartman soon enough. Then, if it turned out to be significant, she would brief everyone on the task force. Maybe that would bring them the break they had been looking for. Or maybe not.
The door swung open and Burden stuck his head in. “Pizza’s here-and we’re almost ready for the meeting.”
Dixon thanked him, then pressed Pause and the image froze. Vail almost screamed at the monitor. What the hell am I missing?
July 19, 1961
Alcatraz
Walton MacNally marked off the days on loose-leaf sheets stored in a binder he kept in his cell, beside his now dog-eared picture of Henry. He had been told the salt air would eventually ruin the photo, but it’s the only one he had. And if their plan was successful, he would hopefully not be in his cell long enough for the corrosive environment to take its toll. Sitting beside his son on a dock, fishing, or shooting hoops, or fielding grounders… Was that too much to ask? Had the crimes he committed been so heinous that they needed to lock him away for decades? Prior to going to prison, he had never harmed anyone.
Just money. He just took money. And that wasn’t even his fault, not really.
Or was it? Was Voorhees right, that life was about choices, and he had made the wrong ones? Choices that led him to this point in time, in a penal colony locked away on an island in the middle of an ocean, living among the worst of the worst.
He had already been told about those who had called The Rock home before him-the likes of serial rapists, killers, mobsters. And then there were others like him, armed robbers and bank heist offenders. Kidnappers. Psychopaths and sociopaths.
This was not the life he had envisioned when the idea of stealing money from Township Community Savings came to him. It was, in effect, a life of imprisonment borne from a need to provide food and shelter for his son.
But he could almost put the past couple of years behind him if he broke out of here. When he broke out.
He looked up from his reverie, standing behind his bars, waiting for the count to be finished so he could grab breakfast with Morris, Anglin, and Carnes. Anglin’s brother, Clarence, had arrived on The Rock a few months ago with instructions that he not cell with his brother. At least, that’s what Clarence said he overheard the officer telling the marshal during the handoff at the airport in Kansas City.
Thing was, despite Alcatraz’s stringent rules, well-behaving inmates were largely given the freedom to choose where they wanted to live. With somewhere around seventy-five cells unoccupied at any one time at the penitentiary, it was common for convicts to move around from time to time-often as friendships and alliances developed.
But an apparent breakdown in communication on the part of institution leadership led to Anglin taking a cell adjacent to his brother’s.
That fact facilitated the Anglins’ drilling out their ventilation grilles with greater ease as they were able to hand tools from one to the other. While one worked, the other maintained a lookout with the assistance of foil fastened to a stick, serving as an offset mirror that could be inserted through the bars as an early warning system against advancing officers, whose crepe-soled shoes concealed their approach.
During the past three months, the men had been honing the details of their plan, gathering materials and assembling their tools. While Carnes decided to drop out of the group due to
