Bunny had been transported out here in the back of a police cruiser and then he’d been transferred to a train. Bunny had to feign surprise at that. Longhurst had a unique security policy – no vehicles were allowed near it. Prisoners, deliveries, guests – they all had to hop on a train at a dedicated station ten miles away and enjoy a scenic trip across some of the most desolate desert on earth.
During the days since his arrest in the sunny ghost town of Stanton, where they had discovered his “true identity”, Bunny had been transported, processed, transported again, adjudicated upon, and then, eventually, brought here. Longhurst High Security Penitentiary. The last half-hour of the ride to the prison had been notable for the absence of anything of note. Vast swathes of inhospitable sand as far as the eye could see.
Bunny had fought every instinct and kept quiet throughout the process, only speaking in court to confirm the name and guilt he’d been assigned, both of which belonged to another man: Anthony Rourke. Mr Rourke was from Dublin, which was an accent entirely different to Bunny’s strong Cork brogue. Admittedly, most Yanks couldn’t tell the difference – as evidenced by the number of times he’d been asked if he was Scottish – but it didn’t make any sense to tempt fate. All it would take was a girl from Galway working as a court clerk on her gap year, and he’d be in all kinds of trouble.
Technically, he’d be in less trouble. As it was, Anthony Rourke was an armed robber who’d escaped from the loving embrace of the Nevada penal system twenty-eight years ago, with eight years left on his ten-year sentence. He now had that to serve plus a bonus of six years for hurting their feelings by skipping out without leaving a note.
Bunny had no idea what they’d even charge him with if they realised he wasn’t Rourke – impersonating a felon wasn’t anywhere on the books as far as Bunny was aware. He knew certain men enjoyed – and even had been known to pay for – services where someone informed them they’d been a very naughty boy, despite not having done anything wrong, but he doubted any of them were committed to the fantasy enough to cop to fourteen years in prison.
When Sister Dionne had first explained the plan to him, it had sounded like madness. He’d then talked himself into it. When he had found himself standing in front of the judge, it had suddenly felt like madness again. Then again, his situation was desperate, so if madness was what it was going to take, then madness was what it was going to take.
He had agreed to fake his death and leave Ireland for one reason and one reason only: an awful lot of very bad people were after his Simone. Their relationship gave new meaning to the phrase “It’s complicated”, but the decision to try to protect her had still been a simple one. Bunny McGarry had never been a man for half measures.
Since then, his efforts to find her had progressed, but at an infuriatingly slow pace. His only lead had been that Simone had been disappeared out of New York by an order of nuns called the Sisters of the Saint. The Sisters were not the rosary beads and quiet contemplation sort. They were a group of women who went to extraordinary lengths to protect the innocent, and if they used rosary beads at all, it was probably as an improvised garrotte.
After a lot of effort, he managed to locate the Sisters, and after even more effort – and his near death – he had managed to get into their good books. Sort of. None of that had got him any nearer to Simone, though, because the only Sister who might know where she had disappeared to, since leaving Dublin over twenty years ago, was Bernadette.
An elderly nun from Tipperary, Bernadette was as tough as leather and as stubborn as a mule. Apparently, she had got herself kidnapped while doing some unsanctioned work down Mexico way. Leave it to her to go rogue from one of the most rogue organisations on the planet. Now, if Bunny wanted her and her potential knowledge of where Simone might be, he had to help the Sisters in a hostage swap. The twist being – they didn’t currently have their hostage.
The man in question was Carlos Breida and he was incarcerated in Longhurst. They needed to bust him out and they had to do so without anyone realising. Apparently, the man had enemies. The only way they could get Breida out bar a full-scale assault – and briefly that had been considered – was to get Bunny in. Hence why a database had been hacked and Anthony Rourke’s fingerprints had been replaced with Bunny’s.
That, Bunny’s recovery from his injuries, and all the other preparation work had taken time – the best part of half a year. In the meantime, they’d had to hope that Sisters Bernadette and Assumpta were OK, not to mention Simone. Bunny and Sister Dionne had words on several occasions about how long it was taking. In truth, Bunny had no better ideas than the ones they had gone with, but that didn’t make the waiting around any less torturous.
And here he was. Processing had been fun.
