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  “I do.”

  “Well, I found myself in an unacceptable situation. I found myself in Satan’s fortress. So I built my own.” Kal pressed his finger to his temple and then over his heart. “Here, and here. It ain’t very bright, it ain’t very comfortable and it sure as shit ain’t pretty. But I can live here.” Kal glanced around his cell at his books, his posters and his few belongings. “They can take all this away, but they’ll have to use jumper cables, blowtorches and pliers to break down my fortress. You understand.”

  “And I keep asking you to step outside your zone.”

  Kal nodded. “Something like that.”

  “So can I ask you a favor?”

  Kal’s face went blank.

  “Will you hold something for me?”

  Kal’s face went far from blank. Bolan wouldn’t have been surprised if storm clouds had gathered in the cell and lightning had flashed out on the tier. The soldier reached behind his back again and took out his two most prized possessions. “This is a seven-ounce link of flexible charge. Those are push and press detonators stuck in each one.” Bolan snapped his wrist on his camouflaged pen and deployed the surgical needle. “This is an inner city defense pencil.”

  Kal stared at Bolan as if he were a flying monkey from The Wizard of Oz who had just flown into his cell and perched on his bed. “How did you sneak these in here?”

  Bolan grinned. “My wife is awesome!”

  Kal wasn’t laughing. “Can I ask you an honest question?”

  “Shoot.”

  “What’s about to happen?”

  “Everything,” Bolan answered. “Or nothing. If I don’t live to retrieve those, they’re yours. You’ll notice the charge is pinched into seven sections. Just twist one off, push it into the lock of any door in your way and press the pin. Each one will open any door in this place, cell, security or otherwise. The shiv? Give it to any Aryan of your choosing through his eardrum, with my compliments.”

  Kal chewed his bottom lip as he stared at the implements of war on the bunk. Bolan knew Kal was once again considering killing him.

  The soldier played his last card. He took the folded title page from Leaves of Grass from his pocket and tossed it on top. “No matter what happens, I have people looking into your case. I won’t embarrass us both by asking whether you did it or not.”

  Kal’s fists clenched against his will.

  “But memorize that phone number and then eat it. I know your lawyer hasn’t done shit for you in years. But contact him and give that number to him. You’ll get new evidence sweeps. New witness interviews, and the best DNA tests science can provide. All from the top level of the DOJ.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m Cooper, and I’m in trouble.”

  “You keep saying that.”

  Bolan locked eyes with the most dangerous lifer in D-Town. “Because it’s half-true.”

  Kal had spent half his life in hell. He had spent that time forging an image of himself that he could look at in the mirror every morning, an image that would withstand living out the rest of his life inside the walls of Duivelstad. Now, twenty-five years in, Mack Bolan had careened into Kal’s iron regimen with nothing but bullshit, bravado and the inexplicable, blowing his horn inside the walls of Jericho and dangling the horrible, willfully forgotten concept of hope.

  Kal shook. “You sick motherfucker.”

  Bolan finished his coffee and left the cell.

  Kal didn’t tell the soldier to take his shit with him.

  * * *

  BOLAN LIMPED INTO the library with Rudy. Rows of bookshelves filled the sweating stone vault. Intermittent fluorescent lighting left the establishment in a patchwork of glare and shadow. It was turn-of-the-twentieth-century Duivelstad architecture and truly was the library for lost souls. A few inmates sat at tables reading books or working on their cases. The most prominent feature of the establishment was a dinner-size table in the middle of the library with eight computer monitors of varying description. Bolan smelled Renzo’s perfume, but didn’t immediately see her. Rudy nodded at the circulation desk. It consisted of a folding table with a beige monitor the size of an old-fashioned television. Rudy nodded at the man behind it. “That’s the man.”

  Bolan took in Lincoln “Link” Whitmore. He could have passed for Abraham Lincoln’s frail, fraternal twin brother in prison garb. Whitmore looked old enough to have been in the box during the assassination. He was pushing seventy, but Rudy had informed Bolan it was his heroin addiction that had mummified him. Whitmore sat typing away, peering over his reading glasses.

  Rudy tapped the edge of the desk. “Hey, Link.”

  Whitmore looked up and smiled. “Oh, hello, Rudy!”

  “This is my friend Cooper.”

  Whitmore removed his reading glasses. “Well, behold the conquering hero.”

  Bolan held forth a wedge-shaped package wrapped in paper towels. “Pleased to meet you.”

  The old man took the package and began opening it. “What is this?”

  “Meat lovers special.”

  The old man sighed when he saw the two slices of cold pizza. “Ah, the spoils of the Hunger Games. And to what do I owe this generosity?”

  “Common sense.”

  Whitmore raised a bushy white eyebrow. “Oh?”

  “Librarians are like dentists and car mechanics, Mr. Whitmore. You want to stay in their good books.”

  “I see.” Whitmore smiled to reveal a set of startlingly huge white teeth. “Shameless bribery, then.”

  “Flattery is next.”

  He bit into the pizza and closed his eyes as long forgotten flavors of real bacon, real cheese and nonmystery meats filled his palate. “That will not be required. You may consider my kingdom conquered, Mr. Cooper, and thank you.”

  “I’m supposed to have internet privileges.”

  “I was informed you do, Mr. Cooper.”

  “Cooper will do.”

  “As will Link. Where would you like to go? I fear the web security here is somewhat severe.”

  “I want to go onto the NASDAQ and check my stocks.”

  Whitmore shook his head. “The software will be blocked from any buying or selling. You have to understand, any financial transaction in Duivelstad outside barter is very often made under duress.”

  “I understand. I just want to check on it. It’s what my wife is living on at the moment.”

  “I see. However, you should I know I will report everything you do to the warden. Despite the pizza, I won’t jeopardize my position as librarian, and a trustee, for you.”

  “I wouldn’t ask it of you.”

  “Then by all means, let us go check on the Bulls and the Bears.” Whitmore raised his voice. “Officer Renzo?”

  Renzo came out of the stacks with her thumb in the middle of Volume II of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. “What’s up, Link?”

  “Mr. Cooper would like to check the stock market,” Whitmore announced.

  “So let him.”

  Whitmore went to the inmate computer table and unlocked a monitor. “There you go.”

  Bolan glanced at Renzo’s reading choice. “Studying for a course?”

  “Nope, just reading up on the folks.”

  “You seem more Sicilian than Roman.”

  “You are a man of discernment and taste.” Renzo perked an eyebrow. “And you have fifteen minutes, convict.”

  Bolan took a seat, brought up nasdaq.com and typed in his user name and password. Whitmore perched his glasses back on his nose and peered at the scrolling financial data. “You have a very interesting portfolio.”

  “I have very good adviser.” The NASDAQ site Bolan scanned was a Trojan horse set up by the Farm. The stocks he clicked on, or didn’t click on, told the Far
m that he was all right. He didn’t need extraction, and that his recon at Duivelstad was ongoing. This session was also the opening handshake with Kurtzman. From now on Bolan could go onto any computer in D-Town and, if he could get a minute without someone looking over his shoulder, could open a chat window with the Farm. Another interesting fact was that Bolan’s War Everlasting had given him access to secrets that the worst of Wall Street’s insider traders could only dream about.

  Renzo’s jaw dropped. “Dude!”

  Bolan noted he had gone from convict to dude. “Take notes. I’m at eleven minutes and counting.”

  Renzo’s lovely face went third generation Sicilian prison guard. “And just what kind of debt do you think that will engender?”

  “One promise.”

  Renzo looked at the screen with longing and at Bolan with open disgust. “Try me. Try me and watch what happens.”

  “Just one thing.”

  Renzo’s hand went to her baton. “What?”

  “Just don’t step on my feet when you finally club me,” Bolan asked. “I’ll break my ankles when I fall.”

  “You are a charming motherfucker, I’ll give you that.”

  “Deal?”

  “I will not step on your feet when I beat you down.”

  “Awesome!”

  Bolan clicked a key and looked at his portfolio summary. The graph showed a black line spiking highest. That told Bolan that according to every factor Kurtzman had been able to put into his equation, it was most likely Duivelstad’s Puerto Rican population that was digging a tunnel.

  Bolan clicked off the dummy NASDAQ. “Can I check sports?”

  Renzo leaned in again. “I wish you would.”

  “Where else can I go?”

  Whitmore smiled wanly. “Anywhere within reason, but reason is a very harsh mistress in here.”

  “Lithuanian lactating lesbian teens dot com?”

  Whitmore’s face went blank. “God, I wish.”

  “This session is over!” Renzo declared, but she seemed more bemused than outraged.

  Bolan clicked off. “Thanks, Link, Officer Renzo.”

  “Come anytime, Cooper,” Whitmore said.

  Bolan rose. He was going to have to have a sit down with Billy the C, and he had just gotten through beating the C Man’s best man like a rug.

  Chapter 10

  Stony Man Farm, Virginia

  “WHO’S THE MAN?” Tokaido whooped.

  Price and Kurtzman looked up from a huge stack of files and data crunching respectively. Price narrowed her eyes at Tokaido. “That would be Mack.”

  Tokaido cringed slightly. “Well, yeah, most definitely, but...” Tokaido suddenly swelled with pride again and pumped his fists. “I rule!”

  Kurtzman clicked a key and brought up what Tokaido had been working on. A smile slowly worked its way across his weary face. “You have been busy.”

  Price leaned over Kurtzman’s shoulder and eyed the monitor. “Akira?”

  “Yes, Barbara?”

  Price sighed. “You do rule.”

  “They were blind, but now they see....” Tokaido hit a key and every screen in the Computer Room filled with what appeared to be a very strange satellite-image schematic of Duivelstad. “We all know D-Town is the funkiest prison in the U.S. But the Bear figured out if anyone had a tunnel there it was the PR’s.”

  Price frowned in distaste.

  “I mean the Puerto Ricans. I mean La Neta. Anyhoo, rather than trying some kind of high imaging route, I got ahold of a Department of the Interior geographical mapping satellite.”

  Kurtzman nodded happily. “With ground-penetrating radar.”

  “Between the ancient sulfur mines, the old fortress sewers, the old and new construction, D-Town’s underground is a mess. You can see that in the imaging. Just about all of it seems to be sealed off. But if you assume La Netas want a tunnel, and the warden has dispersed them, and they own a corner of Cell Block C...”

  Price saw it. A thin line that left C Block and moved across the dead earth space of the yard. It branched into a lower case “y.” One branch hit Block A, and the other stopped short of the ancient drainage system. “Billy the C is trying to reach the old sewers.”

  “He already has, if you ask me. You can see where they screwed up and ran into Block A. The Aryans own that lock stock and barrel, and the C and his people don’t want to pop underneath them. I’m chalking that up to Billy the C and his peeps not being master masons. The line to Block A is a straight shot. They screwed up and tunneled along a wrong line. The secondary branch goes straight to the sewers. They figured their shit out.”

  Price frowned again.

  “Sorry. Anyhoo, I think they’re just waiting for the right moment to break into the sewers and crawl out.”

  “So Mack could have an escape route,” Price mused.

  Kurtzman looked at the image long and hard. “If the C is willing to let him use it, or Mack has the juice or the moxy to take it from him. We need to have a chat with Mack ASAP.”

  “He hasn’t opened one up yet. My best bet is we tweak his Puerto Rican stock portfolio. I know the rule about assuming, but I’m betting Mack gets it.”

  Price nodded. “I am too. Do it.”

  Tokaido made the adjustments to the dummy NASDAQ.

  Bolan already knew La Neta was the most likely tunneler in Duivelstad. Tokaido had spiked their symbolic stock through the roof with the coded instruction to buy, buy, buy.

  * * *

  RENZO WATCHED THE stock symbolizing the PR tunnel shoot through the roof. “Should I buy?”

  Bolan read the tea leaves. “I’d be careful. I’d be very careful.” He knew he needed to be very careful, as well. He had pounded Tavo Salcido like a nail, but since then the PRs he passed in the yard gave him distant but respectful nods. Bolan had beaten their champion, but it seemed most of Tavo’s fans had managed to switch gears, and wanted to see the soldier take Sawyer Love to the toolshed. Bolan wasn’t sure that would be enough to make Billy the C hand over God knew how many months and years of burrowing through the earth with plastic sporks or whatever hand tools they could fashion or steal.

  The soldier knew he was going to need some kind of leverage.

  Schoenaur swaggered into the library with Zavala at his heels. The captain almost seemed to be in a good mood. “I want a word with you, Cooper.”

  Renzo frowned. Bolan was getting the impression the guard captain wasn’t much loved by most of the troops.

  Schoenaur jerked his head, and Renzo went over to the circulation desk. Bolan clicked off the NASDAQ. The captain spoke low. “Hunger Games. You want it?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “Strangely enough, we try to keep this voluntary, but I wouldn’t recommend saying no.”

  “When?”

  “Monday.”

  Bolan didn’t blink. “I still have bruises from Friday.”

  “It’s a command performance. You and Love. The fans want it. The warden wants it.”

  “I’m in.”

  “Good.”

  “What about what I want?”

  Schoenaur shrugged. “What do you want?”

  “I want to talk to the warden.”

  “You know, we all figured you’d say that. He’s waiting, and he don’t like waiting.”

  Bolan rose and followed Zavala out of the library. Schoenaur fell into step behind him. They took a left turn and went down an empty corridor Bolan had never been in before.

  The soldier knew everything had just gone FUBAR.

  Bolan spun and ripped a palm heel uppercut Kal would have been proud of. Killing a man by breaking his nose and driving his septum into his brain was a myth. No matter how hard you hit it, the septum just broke i
nto pieces rather than flying into any higher functions like shrapnel. Bolan tried to drive Schoenaur’s septum into his brain, anyway. The captain of the guards rubbernecked as the bridge of his nose shattered. Bolan spun on Zavala.

  Pennsylvania karma came around as two stun gun probes hit Bolan square in the chest and Zavala held his trigger down. Voltage rocketed along the soldier’s every nerve ending. He had been hit with electricity before and had withstood it. He took the voltage now. Zavala gasped in horror as Bolan shuddered like a palsy victim and spoke in tongues as he ripped the probes out of his chest by the wires.

  Zavala clawed for his baton. “Oh, God! Oh, God!” Bolan took a step forward and regretted not having killed Schoenaur. He heard the guard captain drawing behind him, but the juicing had turned Bolan’s muscles to jelly and his bones to clay. He turned as if he was twisting in quicksand.

  Bolan’s body locked like tetanus as Schoenaur’s stun gun probes hit his lower back. His legs failed him with the second hit, and he collapsed to the floor. He writhed in a human electrical circuit of hell as Schoenaur held the trigger down and drained the battery into him.

  The soldier convulsed in the fetal position as if he was having a seizure.

  Schoenaur held his blood-streaming, broken beak as he clicked his radio. “Cleanup on aisle four.” Blood poured down the front of the guard captain’s khaki uniform blouse as he clicked in a fresh cassette of probes. “That is going to cost you, Cooper.”

  Bolan’s world went white as Schoenaur hit him with electricity again. The soldier barely heard Zavala’s voice rise in concern. “Captain, you’re going to fry his brain, or give him a heart attack.”

  “Naw, Cooper’s a genuine hard-ass. Aren’t you, Cooper?”

  Two corrections officers burst out of a door and came running down the corridor. One was black, huge and had a shaved head. The other was white, just as tall, with a shaved head as well, but as lanky as a scarecrow. Both men looked leerily at Schoenaur’s mutilated face, but reserved comment.

  “RayRay, Stu, escort Cooper into the lounge.”

  Bolan felt himself being seized and dragged down the corridor to the door the new guards had come through. RayRay and Stu bum-rushed him through it. Bolan sprawled onto ancient tiles. There wasn’t much loungy about the lounge. It was a bare stone cube of a room with a tile floor that had a suspicious drain in the middle of it. A coil of hose hung on a hook, connected to a spigot. An ancient, opened canvas tool sat in one corner. Bolan caught sight of the implements beside it and knew the hurt locker had just yawned open and swallowed him. He spied two lengths of rubber hose. They were stiff like sausages and both ends had been plugged. In Bolan’s youth such weapons had been known euphemistically as “whompers,” and the wrong sort of cops had used them to administer back-alley order among the local African-American youth.