Chapter Twenty-Six
Dionne scanned the room. A lot of nervous and exhausted faces looked back at her.
“OK, the clock is ticking. Let’s go around and see where we are. Mr Faser?”
Arthur stood up. “Well, we’ve been watching the tape, we’ve pored over schematics. Their cell, being at the top of the building, means tunnelling is obviously a non-starter. There are air vents, but they’re four inches wide, so they’re totally useless to us. Maybe with some shaped explosives – if you could get that in to them somehow, and it’s a big if – you could take the side off the cell. Maybe. We’d need an expert in that and then, well, you’ve just got two guys, seventy feet up, who’ve just drawn a whole lot of attention to themselves.
“If you could get a helicopter in – you’d have to disable the anti-aircraft guns – then maybe, but even then, it’d be near impossible to pull them out of there, and you’ve got guard towers with men armed with AR-15s trying to bring you down …” Arthur looked around the room. “What I’m saying is, I think we’re looking at having to get them out of that cell, probably. Of course, Breida only leaves it a couple of times a week for walks, accompanied by guards, and we’ve got no idea when the next one of those will be, as they don’t seem to follow a schedule. So, I mean …”
Faser looked like a man desperately short of ideas.
Dionne nodded in an attempt to hide her disappointment. “OK, so how are we doing with the technical side of things?”
Of all the people in the room, Zoya looked the most uncomfortable. She’d come over in person for this meeting, possibly to try to show support. Dionne appreciated the gesture.
“OK. Well, I’ve gone around and around on the schematics. The cell doors are on a closed system and there’s no way of getting to them from off site. Even if there’s a fire, the guards have to press a button to release them. I’ve found a few places where, if we could get at the wires, we could hack in and take control of the system, but we’d need to be there physically. Sorry …” Zoya gave Dionne a plaintive shrug.
Dionne moved on to Joy and Tatiana. “And what have we got on the human angle?”
Joy cleared her throat loudly. Dionne tried not to grimace at the sound. “OK, so – Zoya got me into this freak of a warden’s emails. He’s trying to find out about the audit he thinks he has coming, but he doesn’t seem to have anyone he can ask directly. Outside that, the dude really likes snakes. Search history. Emails. Dude loves snakes. He’s got a big delivery of a new whatchamacallit …”
“Vivarium,” supplied Zoya.
“Yeah, one of them coming. He’s a freak, but unless anyone wants to try kidnapping his snakes and holding them hostage …” Joy shrugged.
“OK. Noted,” said Dionne, turning to Tatiana. “And the guards?”
Tatiana nodded. “Zoya got hold of some bank statements, et cetera. I’ve been following the likeliest leads. Only one I’ve found so far is a guard called Kevin Harper. He’s got a serious gambling problem. His wife’s just left him, and she’s taken the kids. He’s overdrawn, credit-card debt all over the place, and I’m pretty sure he owes money to loan sharks too. All that and he’s still trying to gamble his way out. It’s grim.”
“OK,” said Dionne. “Good. I mean, not for him but for us. This guy Harper, he could be our in. We offer him money or, if that looks like it might not be enough, we can rig a game. He loses big again and we’d have him. Do we know where he works?”
“The control room,” said Tatiana.
“Oh my God,” said Dionne, “this is perfect. The guards get searched on their way in. Zoya, can you rig up something innocuous-looking that he can connect to the security system somehow?”
Zoya nodded nervously. “I guess.”
“Right. Good,” said Dionne, rubbing her hands together. “OK. Now we’re cooking.” She turned to Faser. “If we get the doors, we can get Bunny and Breida out of the prison itself, right?”
“Yeah,” he replied. “Theoretically. If we can distract the guards and mess with the camera feeds so they don’t show up there.”
“OK,” said Dionne. “That’s doable. Now, we just need to reel in this Harper guy.”
Dionne stopped talking and looked around the room. She noticed nobody except Joy was making eye contact with her.
“Ah, hell,” said Joy, “if nobody else is going to say it, I will. No.”
“Excuse me?” said Dionne.
“Look, Dionne, you’re under a lot of pressure. We get that. But listen to yourself. We take a man who’s lost his family, is drowning in debt, and we force him to help us?” She jabbed a finger at Faser. “Arthur here, I’m fine doing some arm-twisting on.”
“Thanks,” said Arthur.
“And Gold, the lawyer, is a scumbag we caught stealing money off dying old ladies. I’d happily toss him off a building. But this Harper dude? He’s not a bad guy. He’s an addict. What do you think happens to him when this is done? I don’t know what the sentence for a guard aiding a prison break would be, but I’m guessing it sure as shit won’t be a slap on the wrist and parole.”
“Have you got a better suggestion?” snapped Dionne.
“You know I don’t,” said Joy. “But we gotta be better than this.”
Dionne could feel her cheeks burning. “Tell that to Bernadette and Assumpta. And Bunny, who, if we’re really lucky, might live long enough to see out his fourteen-year sentence.”
“I don’t have to,” said Joy. “Because the Sisters have dedicated
