He wouldn’t.
Sam tossed the bloodied box cutter onto the table, and stood, turning his attention to the door where Sharp angrily screamed that he was a dead man. To his left, Glen’s broken body lay, only the whites of his eyes showing. Infront of the door, the hulking frame of Ravi was lying, his blood still painting the steel like cheap graffiti.
And before him, Chapman gurgled and then stopped moving.
Sharp stared in disbelief.
Chapman had walked his final mile.
Behind him, there were over fifteen guards, all of them ready to unload on Sam and beat him to death. Sharp would ensure it would be brutal.
Retrieving his phone from the desk, Sam stepped towards the door, cracked his neck, and began to type.
* * *
Etheridge had purposefully not brought up Chapman’s cell camera onto his screen. He had full faith that Sam would succeed, but he didn’t want to witness the gory details.
He wasn’t a fighter.
With a click of a button he’d locked the cell door and then disabled the tags of the four occupants.
The rest would be on Sam.
Etheridge had one screen trained on the corridor outside the cell, the clear CCTV footage showing him the steel door and the surrounding area. After a few moments of anxious nail biting, he saw a guard approach. And then another.
Soon, there were seventeen guards, all of them stood in a semi-circle as their boss slammed his fist on the door. There was no audio, but from the clear agitation of the man, he assumed Sam had done exactly as intended.
The phone on his desk buzzed, and Etheridge scooped it up immediately. He opened the text message.
NOW.
Laughing at Sam’s precise messages, he turned back to the screens. He couldn’t imagine what his friend had been through, nor the brutality with which he finished it. But they were far from out of it just yet and Etheridge brought up the schematics of the Grid and frantically hammered his keyboard.
His override code was immaculate, and he took control of the entire facility.
Etheridge glanced up at the screen, sent Sam a silent good luck, and then pressed the button.
He watched as the guards startled in disbelief as throughout the entire building, the mechanical locks of the cell doors flew open.
Etheridge sat back in his chair and watched as the inmates began to emerge from their cells like rats from the sewer.
‘Time to move, Sam,’ he said out loud, and with the guards beginning to fend off a wave of furious and violent prisoners, Etheridge unlocked Chapman’s cell door, and Sam stepped out into the mayhem.
Chapter Twenty-Two
As soon as Harris was informed of the drug bust, he shuffled to his wardrobe to retrieve his uniform. To the dismay of his wife, Anna, he was heading into work on one of his mandated rest days and as he struggled to pull his shirt sleeve over his arm, she began to cry.
‘You need to give this up, Geoff.’ She wept. ‘It’s not doing you any good.’
Harris sighed.
‘Something major has happened that needs my attention.’
‘Your health needs your attention,’ Anna responded, shaking her head. ‘I hate seeing you like this.’
Harris grunted and yanked at the sleeve with frustration. His declining mobility was a sickening slap in the face from the cruel hands of fate. After twenty revered years of service in the armed forces, and an immaculate reputation as a police Warden, Harris had never been one to take his foot off the gas. But life had a funny way of revealing your mortality and it pained him to be a burden on his wife.
Anna took a breath, stood, and marched from the doorway to his side. Tentatively, she pulled the sleeve over his arm and then went about buttoning the shirt. Towering over her, Harris leant forward, and gently kissed her forehead.
‘I love you.’
She smiled warmly.
‘Then stay here. With me.’
Anna finished buttoning his shirt and turned to the wardrobe, lifting his immaculately polished shoes from the rack that sat beneath a rail of identical, crisply ironed shirts. Harris tucked in his shirt and despite his protests, allowed Anna to tie his laces. Feeling so helpless was the biggest struggle of his multiple sclerosis, as his immune system was mistakenly attacking his brain and nervous system. His balance had been deteriorating for a while and he could barely make it through the day without feeling exhausted.
Anna was right.
He needed to give it up.
But not today.
Anna helped him to the car which had pulled up outside their plush cottage, thirteen miles away from Ashcroft and she held him closely. They kissed once more, and he eased himself into the back seat and the car sped towards the prison. On the journey, he called Sharp countless times, his rage increasing with each call that didn’t connect. As they approached the first gate, Harris cursed the numerous safety measures designed to keep people out.
He needed to get in and restore order.
As they cleared the final door, he was shocked to be met by Spencer Watkins, his face pale with fear.
‘Jesus, Spencer. What’s wrong?’ Harris’s voice was laced with concern and as he struggled from the backseat, Watkins gave him a guiding arm.
‘I don’t know what happened, sir…’
‘What? What is it?’
‘No matter what I did, I lost control. Like someone else was controlling the panel and…’
‘Breathe, Watkins,’ Harris said calmly, resting a comforting arm on the young man’s shoulder. It was also a useful support.
‘I tried, sir. I really tried.’
‘Take a moment and tell me what happened?’
Harris felt a flutter of irritation in his gut. After the news of Chapman’s empire falling, he needed to get inside the prison and ensure that the notorious inmate was still behaving as expected. Sure, the veteran gangster rode his luck at times, but for the most part, he was respectful of Harris. While the warden expected some sort
