Stand Your Ground Read online

  He was getting out of the car when he noticed a convoy of trucks approaching along the highway. They looked like military vehicles, complete with camo covers on the backs. That was strange, too. Fuego was just full of weird shit this morning.

  Like those two guys standing beside the open back doors of a van about fifty yards away in the parking lot. Chuck had never seen them before, and they sure didn’t look like they came from around here.

  With his door still open and his left hand gripping the top of it, Chuck called over the cruiser’s roof, “Hey, fellas—”

  One of the men took a funny-looking object out of the van and pointed it at him. Chuck’s eyes went painfully wide as he recognized the thing as a grenade launcher.

  The sons of bitches were about to blow him up!

  CHAPTER 13

  George Baldwin led Stark into a fairly large room where a flat-screen TV mounted on one cream-colored wall was displaying an NFL pre-game show.

  Half a dozen computers in individual workstations were arrayed along another wall, and an inmate in an orange jumpsuit sat at each computer while other prisoners perched on chairs and waited for their turns.

  Square metal tables with chairs, all bolted to the floor, were arranged in a grid. Prisoners sat at most of those tables, some playing cards, some playing dominoes.

  “Looks like a rec room,” Stark commented. “Well, except for the guards.”

  Uniformed correctional officers were posted here and there around the room.

  “That’s what it is,” Baldwin said. “Sunday’s a free day, and men who have earned the privilege by good behavior can spend it here, even some of the lifers.”

  “Pretty lenient for a maximum security facility.”

  “I try to treat all the men with dignity and respect, even the ones who don’t deserve it at first. Maybe someday they will.”

  “Not a bad policy,” Stark said with a nod. He looked around the room at the two dozen prisoners. “Some of these guys look a little familiar.”

  “You’ve probably seen them on the news.” Baldwin nodded toward two men sitting at a table playing cards. “The little balding guy is Albert Carbona. One of the last of the old-time mobsters. The big fella with him is Billy Gardner. He was one of Carbona’s top soldiers in the mob.”

  “I thought they were all Italian.”

  Baldwin shook his head and said, “No, organized crime was an equal opportunity employer.” He pointed to a man sitting at one of the computers. “That’s J.J. Lockhart.”

  This prisoner was a handsome man in his thirties or forties with a shock of wavy brown hair. Stark asked, “Why do I recognize that name?”

  “He ran a gambling syndicate that covered Texas and most of the Southwest. That was just for guys who wanted to place an illegal bet in person. Lockhart also had an online gambling operation that raked in millions from all over the world. That’s what finally landed him in hot water with the Feds.”

  Stark noticed another jumpsuit-clad prisoner who sat at a table gazing longingly at the computers. He said, “That fella looks like he can’t wait for his turn at one of the computers.”

  Baldwin snorted. “He’s going to have to wait a long time. That’s Simon Winslow. Big computer hacker. Stole millions, leaked a bunch of government secrets. He’s not allowed to touch a computer. I probably shouldn’t even let him be in here. But if he gets within ten feet of one of those stations, a guard will make him back off.”

  “So you’re sort of driving him crazy by letting him see the computers but not use them.”

  Baldwin chuckled and said, “I never really thought of it quite that way, but I suppose you’re right. I’m not gonna waste any sympathy on the guy, though. He could’ve used his smarts to do something worthwhile with his life.”

  Simon Winslow was short, slender, and redheaded. He seemed out of place, surrounded as he was by inmates who were, for the most part, bigger and rougher-looking than he was.

  One of the guards standing against the wall not far from Stark and Baldwin didn’t look much tougher than Winslow. He nodded to the two visitors and said, “Good morning, Warden Baldwin.”

  “Cambridge,” Baldwin said without any warmth. As they walked away, the warden added under his breath to Stark, “Kid’s kind of a suck-up. Nobody really likes him, but he does a decent job.”

  Stark didn’t doubt that. Baldwin ran a tight operation, always had. He wouldn’t tolerate incompetence in anyone who worked for him.

  Something poked at Stark’s brain. He said, “What’s the story on that fella Kincaid, the one who works in the library?”

  “Lucas? Good man. Was an MP in Germany when he was in the service. I was glad to get him.”

  “He looks more like he ought to be a guard, instead of checking books in and out.”

  “When he applied, that’s what I had in mind, too, but when he found out about the opening in the library, he asked for it. That sort of took me by surprise, but I was willing to give him the job. It’s not one that most guys would want. He’s qualified to handle any trouble that comes up, like any of the other guards.”

  “I noticed that about him right away,” Stark said. “Those quiet, unassuming fellas are usually tougher than the ones who are full of bluster.”

  “Like you.”

  Stark grinned.

  “You mean I’m full of bluster?”

  “No, you’re one of the men who keeps his mouth shut and does his job and doesn’t make a big show out of being tough.”

  Stark shrugged.

  “And modest, too,” Baldwin added with a smile.

  Before he could say anything else, the walkie-talkie clipped to his belt chirped. He unfastened it, raised it to his lips, and keyed the mic.

  “This is Baldwin.”

  “Got a civilian at the front gate asking to see you, Warden,” came a man’s voice, accompanied by a faint crackle of static. “She says her name is Alexis Devereaux. Should we let her in, sir?”

  Baldwin glanced at Stark, told him, “You called it, John Howard,” then said into the walkie-talkie, “Escort her to my office. I’ll be right there.”

  “I used to be a White House correspondent, you know. You probably remember.” The man with the perfectly styled graying hair and dignified demeanor lowered his voice to a solemn timbre and intoned, “‘This is Travis Jessup, reporting from the White House.’ Remember?”

  “Of course I do,” Alexis told him, even though she really didn’t. After a while all the TV newspeople began to look and sound alike whether they were black or white, male or female. They were useful idiots, always eager to quote Democrat talking points as fact and make the Republicans look as bad as possible, all the while maintaining a haughty, laughable façade of journalistic integrity.

  Alexis was counting on Jessup to make her look good, though, so she wasn’t going to say anything to offend him. She would use every weapon available to make her point, including the lapdog media.

  She was just glad that Jessup and the rest of the TV crew hadn’t gotten lost. They had pulled up in their van equipped with a satellite dish while Alexis was waiting at the prison gate to be admitted to the facility.

  The crew wasn’t a big one: a producer/director, a sound technician, and a camera operator. Plus the on-air talent, Travis Jessup.

  Actually, Jessup’s name was familiar to Alexis, and after thinking about it for a couple of minutes, she remembered why.

  As Jessup had mentioned, he had been the White House correspondent for one of the broadcast networks, until he had slipped up and reported a story about how one of the First Lady’s old college friends had been indicted on criminal conspiracy charges in some financial sector scandal.

  That had nearly been the end of Jessup’s career. All it had taken was one angry phone call from the vengeful First Lady to the president of the network—who had been a member of the White House communications staff in the previous administration—to get Jessup fired.

  For a while he had dropped out of
sight since none of the other networks wanted to hire him, but then an election had come along and the administration had changed—although remaining Democratic, of course—and Jessup wasn’t quite as persona non grata anymore, Alexis supposed. Recently he had started to show up again now and then on the air.

  It was a little galling that they’d sent someone like that to cover this story, she thought as she waited impatiently. She should have had a major anchor, maybe even a morning show host, assigned to her visit to Hell’s Gate. But she’d just have to make the best of it, she supposed.

  The guard came back out of the little hut where he’d gone to talk to somebody on a walkie-talkie. He smiled through the open car window at Alexis and told her, “The warden says you’re to be escorted to his office, ma’am. He’ll meet you there.”

  “Escorted by whom?” Alexis asked.

  The guard pointed toward the prison. This gate was a good hundred yards from the main complex. She wondered if the open, sandy ground between the high, razor-wire-topped fences was actually covered with land mines. She wouldn’t put it past these reactionary fascists.

  The gate in the inner fence had opened and a black SUV drove through it toward the outer gate.

  “You’ll have to leave your car here,” the guard went on. “The news van will have to stay outside the fence, too.”

  “Wait just a minute,” Travis Jessup said in his booming voice. He stood just outside the open driver’s side window of Alexis’s rental car. “I’m not sure if that will work.”

  The producer/director in charge of the crew, a stocky, graying man who appeared to be in his late forties, said, “Yeah, that’ll be fine, Travis, don’t worry. I’ll stay with the truck. Joel and Riley will go inside with you and Ms. Devereaux. Their equipment will be linked with the truck, and we’ll get the signal out live.”

  “All right, fine,” Jessup said.

  The guard said, “Um . . . I just cleared Ms. Devereaux with the warden. I’ll have to ask him about you TV folks before I can let you in.”

  “Well, you’d better get at it,” Jessup said with a disapproving frown. “You can’t stand in the way of the media. It’s un-American.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” the guard muttered as he retreated into the hut again.

  When he came back out a minute later, he nodded and said, “Okay, you and you and you can go in with the lady.”

  As he spoke, he pointed to Jessup, the tall, skinny, bearded sound tech, and the cameraperson, a woman about thirty with her long chestnut hair pulled back in a ponytail.

  “All your gear will have to be checked before you go in, though,” the guard added.

  All this red tape annoyed Alexis, but she knew the fastest way to get through it was to just put up with it. She got out of the rental car as the black SUV stopped inside the outer gate.

  The two men who got out of the vehicle wore Kevlar vests over their uniform shirts and carried semiautomatic assault rifles with big clips. Alexis hated the sight of the evil-looking guns. As far as she was concerned they should have been banned ages ago, even for law enforcement personnel.

  Once the inner gate had rumbled closed, someone pushed a button somewhere and the outer gate began to open. Alexis knew all such functions probably were controlled from a command center inside the prison. There would be cameras focused on her right now, but that idea didn’t bother her.

  She had always enjoyed being the center of attention and was pragmatic enough to admit it.

  One of the armed guards told her, “Ma’am, if you and your friends would get in the SUV, we’ll take you to the warden.”

  Alexis didn’t bother explaining that the TV people weren’t her friends.

  The SUV had three seats, each separated from the others by a sheet of glass that Alexis assumed was bulletproof. The middle and rear sets of doors had no handles on the inside, just like the back doors of police cars.

  The seats were more comfortable than the backseats of police cars, though. Alexis had been in one or two of those, having been arrested at protests during her younger days.

  Now she preferred to try to mold public opinion without resorting to such means. She would rather provoke other people to go out and protest in the streets and get arrested, rather than doing it herself.

  Once everybody was inside the SUV, Alexis and Travis Jessup in the middle seat, the soundman and the cameraperson in the back, all of them having been wanded with a portable metal detector and their equipment thoroughly examined, the vehicle swung around and drove back through the gate.

  By the time it reached the inner gate, the outer one had closed again. Step by precautionary step, the visitors made their way into the prison, and eventually Alexis found herself being shown into a comfortably furnished but not fancy office.

  Jessup had been told he would have to wait in the reception room outside, which made the newsman stew sullenly.

  A man stood behind the desk when Alexis came in. She recognized him from her research as George Baldwin, the warden of this private correctional facility that bore his family’s name, one of several in various parts of the country owned and operated by the Baldwins.

  “Ms. Devereaux,” Baldwin said as he came around the desk and extended his hand to her. “Welcome to Hell’s Gate.”

  “So even you use that derogatory name for this place,” she said as she gave his hand a perfunctory shake.

  Baldwin smiled and shrugged as he said, “I don’t know that the name is all that derogatory. I think of it more as descriptive.”

  “It’s only descriptive if that really is Hell on the other side of that gap in the cliffs.”

  “Well, that’s a good point. People in these parts have been using the name for nearly a hundred and fifty years, though, since long before there was a correctional facility here, so I don’t think we’ll be breaking the habit.” He waved at a plush leather chair in front of the desk. “Won’t you have a seat?”

  “Thank you,” Alexis said coolly. She sat down and crossed her legs, well aware of the effect that usually had on men—and a surprising number of women as well. “I suppose you know why I’m here, Warden.”

  Baldwin settled down in his chair and said, “Why don’t you tell me anyway?”

  “I want to inspect the conditions under which those political prisoners are being held.”

  “You mean the terrorists that were brought here last week.”

  “In the eyes of the world they’re political prisoners,” Alexis snapped.

  Baldwin spread his hands and said, “That may well be true, Ms. Devereaux, but to speak plainly, I don’t really care how the rest of the world sees them. They’ve all been charged with numerous counts of criminal conspiracy. Some of them are facing murder and attempted murder charges as well. They’ve tried and in some cases succeeded in killing American citizens, and they’ve damaged American interests here and around the world.”

  “Allegedly,” Alexis said with a slight sneer on her face and in her voice.

  “Point taken,” Baldwin said. “Innocent until proven guilty, right? Due process and all. That’s still the way we do things in this country.” His voice hardened. “If you’re on the proper side of the political aisle, anyway. Republicans and other conservatives don’t always seem to get the same leeway, do they? Just ask the IRS and all the other agencies that have raised political harassment to an art form.”

  Alexis’s voice wasn’t cool anymore. It was downright cold as she said, “Don’t try to change the subject by bringing up a bunch of old scandals that were phony to begin with, Warden. I represent a number of human rights organizations, and they want to know that the men being kept here are being treated fairly and humanely. Are you going to let me see for myself if that’s true, or are you going to stonewall?”

  “You’re right.”

  His response took her by surprise. She said, “I am?”

  “Yes, you are. My job is to keep those men here until their cases come to trial, and then it’s up to the justice system to
deal with them. This facility is professionally run, and we have nothing to hide. I’ll have to ask you to cooperate with our security requirements, but within that framework I’ll be glad to show you anything you want to see.”

  Alexis was a little nonplussed. She had expected more of an argument.

  But Baldwin was giving up, so she wasn’t going to turn down his surrender. She said, “Thank you. I’ve brought along some people from the media to document what I find.”

  “Of course you have,” Baldwin said as he got to his feet.

  She thought about acting offended at his comment but then decided it wasn’t worth the effort. She stood up, too, and he started to usher her out of the office.

  “Your visit wasn’t exactly unexpected, you know,” Baldwin commented.

  “It wasn’t?”

  “No, I had a pretty good idea you’d be showing up sometime. I was told that you were in town.”

  As Alexis stepped out of the office, she saw a tall, muscular figure leaning against the wall of the reception room. He straightened from his casual pose and gave her a little smile and a nod.

  “John Howard Stark,” Alexis said. “Why am I not surprised?”

  CHAPTER 14

  For a split second, Officer Chuck Gibbs thought about drawing his service weapon and calling on the two men to lay down their weapons and surrender.

  But every instinct in his body told him that wouldn’t do a damned bit of good. He realized, too, that he shouldn’t take cover behind his cruiser.

  Not when the bad guys were armed with a freakin’ grenade launcher.

  Instead, he turned and ran as fast as he could.

  Half a dozen years earlier, Chuck had played wide receiver and defensive back on the Fuego High School football team. He had run track, too. He was pretty fast.

  He needed to be fast right now. The more space between him and that police car, the better.