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  “Table of Organization and Equipment.”

  “We’re going to try and sneak some things in.”

  Price’s face went flat as she did the math. “Oh.”

  “Yeah, we’re going to put Carmen on that one.”

  Carmen Delahunt was the polar opposite of Barbara Price. Price had once been a model. Delahunt was a middle-aged redheaded handful of curves, and a divorced mother of three. “She might be better for that,” Price conceded. “So what is your plan for me then?”

  Kurtzman held up a Department of Justice ID badge that Hal Brognola had sent to the Farm via courier. The badge had Price’s face on it and denoted a very high pay grade and seniority. “Mack is supposedly a transfer from Gitmo. Maybe he can’t have visitors or see his lawyer for three more days, but is Warden Linder going to tell the Feds no when they demand to look in on their prisoner?” Kurtzman took a plane ticket out of a drawer and slid it and the DOJ badge across the table. “You’ve got a plane to Pennsylvania tomorrow at 10:00 in the a.m. Tonight we’ll work up your script. Tomorrow you go check on our boy.”

  Chapter 6

  BOLAN TILTED BACK his head and enjoyed the first rays of the sun to strike his face in days. The soldier breathed deeply. The smell of grass and dirt and wind from beyond the perimeter was a benediction after the overwhelming smell of hundreds of men locked in cages, day after day performing bodily functions natural and less so. A century of men eating somewhat less than optimally digestible meals had left a facility whose stone walls literally sweated flatulence in summer.

  Bolan let out his breath and took in the yard.

  It consisted of a patchwork of dirt, weeds and a few scruffy strips of green lawn intersected by concrete walkways running between the buildings. There were none of the usual basketball courts, weight-lifting pits or other sports facilities. The interior fence of the deadline cast a pall on all the outdoor activities. Exercise in the yard in Duivelstad seemed to consist mainly of spending a few precious moments outside the molded, mildewed and orificially odored confines of the cell blocks, and smoking cigarettes. Bolan glanced over and checked out Aryan Acres. Most of the inhabitants checked out Bolan in return.

  The soldier smiled at his admirers. Milk and honey butter had improved his mood. Sawyer started to stand up, but Rollin put a hand on the giant’s shoulder and sat him back down. Longer ago than Bolan cared to think about, he had declared his War Everlasting. Ending up in prison had been the worst case of all scenarios. Now he languished in the worst prison in America, by choice. All in all he was doing okay. The prison bitches liked him, the Puerto Ricans admired his style, the Muslims had given him a carton of milk and he had the Rudolphos by the short hairs as intelligence assets.

  Hard won instincts told Bolan time was swiftly running out.

  Team Rudolpho walked up. Patrick appeared to have had a scared-straight moment sometime around five minutes inside general population, and followed his father like a shadow. Rudy spoke low. “I did what you wanted, Cooper. I was installing new software on the U’s computer and told him you were perfect for the Hunger Games.”

  “And?”

  “And I stuck to the script. I told him the only thing I can get out of you is that you miss your wife. Like, really miss her, and that she and her situation is the biggest leverage the Feds have on you. I told him to dangle a conjugal and supervised library internet privileges, and you just might fight. I told him you’d probably put on a better show than Tavo.”

  A voice shouted out from Aryan Acres. “Hey, girl!”

  The con Rollin had stepped down from the bleachers and now leered at Patrick from twenty yards away. “Yeah, I’m talking to you, Patti-cakes! You had a shower yet?”

  Bolan noted with approval that Patrick clenched his hands into fists rather than flinch. The soldier narrowed his eyes as the young man took a step forward and bellowed in defiance, “Yo! Rollin! Why don’t you put on your little bitch sundress, get on your bike, roll your way back to bitch acres and get your shamrock-shake green head bobbing pretty beneath the bleachers! I got a dime to do and no time for you, fool!”

  The yard erupted in catcalls, whistles and cheers from corner to corner.

  “Patrick, I told you to look to me,” Bolan muttered.

  Patrick snarled in mixed fear and fury. “I’m right next to you!”

  Rudy sighed, but there was some pride in his son in it. “The boy has a mouth on him.”

  Patrick kept his eyes on target and his attention on Bolan. “Any advice?”

  “Yeah, you have to stand up for yourself against Rollin, no doubt, but you just insulted the entire home team. Don’t do that again.”

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s too late for sorry.” Bolan stepped forward. War with the Aryan Circle had always been inevitable. They had just made their first move, and as far as the soldier was concerned it was about time. If the war was joined, then having the first battle under a blue sky with half the population watching was just about as good as it was going to get. “You want a piece of the kid? You have to come through me.”

  Rollin stepped forward, but leered at Patrick. “Wow, inside only one day and already you’re a two-daddy Patti!” Aryan Acres roared at this new height in big house humor. The rest of the yard was silent as it watched. The guards on the wall were suspiciously uninvolved. Bolan heard a radio crackle behind him. He suspected they were probably laying bets, and that told the soldier all he needed to know.

  This fight was sanctioned. How he had taken out the Todd and survived as Kal’s Caucasian celly were mysteries that were about to be solved, and his fitness for the Hunger Games tested. If Rollin whipped him it would be stopped before Bolan was crippled, or at least before he was killed.

  Rollin’s voice dropped low just for Bolan. “Now as for you...”

  Bolan suddenly strode fast to his right toward the gate to the yard. Rollin moved to cut him off, as the soldier knew he would. Bolan had found the sun in his face mighty fine after four days inside. Now Rollin got to enjoy it. The con blinked and squinted as the slanting afternoon rays shone straight in his eyes. The enforcer moved to get out of the sun and Bolan countercircled. The soldier’s shadow followed Rollin like a compass needle. Rollin roared as he suddenly realized what was happening.

  Then he charged.

  The con was big, as tall as Bolan and about twenty pounds heavier, but a good bit of that was fat around the middle. His left hand extended in a claw as his right drew back in a hamlike fist. That told Bolan that Rollin was the kind of con who liked to grab men smaller than him and start pounding on them.

  Bolan didn’t feel like being grabbed, much less pounded.

  The soldier strode into spitting distance. He dropped to one knee and threw a right hand lead aimed two inches below the top button of the enforcer’s fly. Bolan buried his fist into Rollin’s bladder. The Aryan Circle enforcer made a hissing noise like a lizard being stepped on. Only his momentum kept the con moving forward. Bolan didn’t retract his arm. Instead, he stood up underneath Rollin and sent him teeter-tottering over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry.

  The blow and the throw had been a two heartbeat blur of action. Bolan walked two steps away before Rollin hit the ground behind him like a sack of potatoes. The soldier turned.

  A carbine cracked from the wall and a bullet dug a divot in the crabgrass three feet to Bolan’s right. Schoenaur’s voice bellowed over a bullhorn. “Freeze!”

  Bolan stood unmoving over his adversary.

  Shouts, curses, threats and invectives rose into the air over Aryan Acres as if from an enraged troop of baboons. Aryans spilled forward like a bench clearing at a hockey game. Schoenaur called out like God on High over his public address system. “Tear gas!” Bolan glanced up at the tower and saw two guards with six-shot, revolving, 37 mm grenade launchers shouldered. Schoenaur held
up his hand like the captain of a firing squad. “In five...four...three...”

  Every con in the yard, including the hostile Aryans, dropped to their knees and put their hands behind their heads with the oiled alacrity of practice. Bolan followed suit. He scanned the walls as carbines and grenade launchers tracked the kneeling populace. Bolan gazed at Schoenaur’s mirrored sunglasses. The distance between them was too great for Bolan to read the guard captain’s face or body language. “Exercise period is over! Return to your units, by cell block! Starting with C!”

  The inhabitants of C Block rose from wherever they were in the yard and began streaming toward the gate. Bolan looked behind him before he joined his block mates. Rollin lay curled up on the ground. The Aryan enforcer’s jeans were soaked from crotch to thigh. The wetting of the faded denim was taking on an ugly pinkish-red hue from the con’s ruptured bladder. Rollin cried as he clutched himself.

  “Tell the Force from me to go fuck himself,” Bolan ordered.

  The soldier joined the Rudolphos in the file moving toward the gate. “Rudy, tell the warden I’m in.”

  * * *

  “SO YOU THINK he’s a soldier?” Linder asked.

  Scott nodded at the warden. “He doesn’t walk like a jarhead or act like some guy just returned from Afghanistan, but you should have seen him take down Rollin. One shot, surgical, and now my boy is peeing pink through a catheter in the infirmary in a rack next to the Todd.”

  “We’ve dealt with soldier boys and their attitude problems in here before.”

  “That we have,” Scott agreed. “But if this asshole was at Gitmo, he’s a soldier who fucked up really bad, or he was into some kind of spooky shit and did something or saw something extra special to end up here.”

  “You think he’s Special Forces?”

  “That, or he’s got to be some kind of martial arts master like Kal, but he doesn’t give off the bullshit Zen seeker vibe.”

  “And what kind of vibe does inmate Cooper give off?”

  “He gives off serious asshole, and he proves it by ripping people new ones. Right after he burst Rollin’s bladder, he specifically told Rollin to tell me to go fuck myself. Personally, I admired the style, but something is going to have to be done about that on my end.”

  Linder’s chair creaked as he leaned his bulk back. “I had a talk with Rudy this morning.”

  “Italian Mafia,” Scott scoffed. “Jesus, do they even exist anymore besides on HBO?”

  “He’s useful.”

  “Bringing in his boy was smart, but now he’s got Cooper for a guard dog. I don’t see too many cons of any stripe stepping up to do anything about that now.”

  Linder gave Scott a sly look. “You don’t think Cooper can be taken?”

  “Icing Cooper is easy. Shackle him up, put him in isolation and have your man Schoenaur pop his head like a cyst. You don’t want the blood on you or your men’s hands? Get him in the laundry room alone, and me and ten of my boys will take him. I don’t care what Spec Op bullshit he knows, he’ll get a few of us, but once he’s taken a few shanks to the nuts and the guts? Like death and taxes, it’s inevitable.” Scott leaned back, as well. “But you don’t want that.”

  “Not just yet,” Linder admitted.

  “So what did your boy Rudy have to say?”

  “He says that Cooper misses his wife, and that Cooper is willing to fight in the Hunger Games for a conjugal and maybe some library time.”

  Scott steepled his fingers as he considered this piece of information. “Well, now, that does present some interesting possibilities.”

  “So I was thinking.”

  “You going to let him fight?”

  Linder nodded. “I’m thinking yes.”

  “You going to agree to his terms?”

  “He wants the conjugal up front.” Linder gave Scott an ugly smile. “It seems he’s worried he might not be able to enjoy it afterward, depending on his opponent.”

  “Well, now, a man who’s been beaten senseless can still enjoy a blow job, but what the hell is going to do in the library? Look at the picture books and eat paste? I think our boy Cooper has his priorities reversed.”

  Linder threw back his head and laughed.

  “You going to go along with it?” Scott asked.

  “Oh, I think so. My distributors have been clamoring for the next fight.”

  “You got an opponent in mind?”

  Linder locked eyes with Scott. “As a matter of fact, I do.”

  * * *

  “IT’S ON,” RUDY stated.

  Bolan looked up from his book. “When?”

  “It’s the Hunger Games, Friday night lights and Friday night fights.”

  “My conjugal?”

  “He said sure.” Rudy was clearly concerned. “I think he agreed to it a little too easily.”

  Bolan rolled off his bunk and stepped out onto the tier. Rudy followed him. The soldier had two days. Not enough time to get in any meaningful training. The best thing he could do was rest and eat as much food as he could scrounge. “You going to be in attendance?”

  “A couple of trustees will be doing the filming, but I’ll be coordinating the feed for the internet. So yeah, I’ll be in the room, but I’ll be busy. Don’t look to me when Love gouges out your eyes and skull-fucks you.” Rudy didn’t like anything about the plan. “I’ll light a candle for you at Sunday service.”

  Bolan smiled. “You’d do that for me?”

  Rudy blinked. “Sure. I give you my word.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You know you’re supposed to be guarding me and my son, not going War of the Gargantuas with the most gargantuan son of a bitch in this house for pussy privileges.”

  “Better I deal with Love sooner rather than later, and I’d prefer a controlled environment rather than receiving the Love after a sewing machine shanking in the showers. As for pussy privileges—” Bolan suddenly loomed close and Rudy leaned back “—you’re just jealous.”

  “I get one every three months. My next one is two months out. That’s the problem with conjugals. If you’re lucky enough to get them, it’s all you think about, and time between them drags even harder than time normally drags in this place. Sometimes I almost wish my wife had divorced me. Waiting for her, knowing she’s a weapon they can use against me, and scared shitless the warden will use it? Sometimes I think the lifers with nothing are the happiest here.”

  “You could always willingly decline your conjugals.”

  Rudy laughed. “Fuck that!”

  “That’s what I thought you’d say.”

  “All right, it won’t be much yet, but what can I do on my end?” Rudy asked.

  “Honestly, I could use some fuel between now and the fight.”

  “You’re on dietary restriction and I’m watched pretty close.”

  “You have money?”

  Rudy gave Bolan a wary look. “I have money.”

  “Get some to Bobbie-John. Does the commissary have energy bars?”

  “Yeah, really bad ones.”

  “I’ll need six, a Snickers, and an energy drink come Friday.”

  “That can be arranged.”

  “Tell him he can buy anything he wants for himself as long as it’s not so much it arouses suspicion.”

  “Bobbie-J will get the word.”

  Things quieted as Zavala came marching down the tier, boots ringing like those of a storm trooper. “Cooper!”

  “Yo!” Bolan shouted out.

  “Some bitch wants to see you!”

  Rudy gazed at Bolan in mild awe. “That was fast.”

  Chapter 7

  BOLAN WALKED INTO the warden’s office flanked by Zavala and Barnes. Schoenaur stood behind Warden Linder giving Bolan the hard
stare. The soldier allowed his eyes to flare at the sight of Barbara Price in an immaculate charcoal suit, wearing a DOJ badge around her neck.

  “Oh shit!” A man who accompanied Price wore a marshal’s badge that proclaimed him to be Marshal Avery Roy, but Bolan suspected that he was one of the Farm’s blacksuits.

  Price instantly took Bolan’s cue and gazed on the soldier as if he was something she’d scraped off her shoe. “Oh shit is right, Cooper. Do you think we forgot about you?”

  Bolan backed up a step and felt the tip of Zavala’s baton in his back. “Have a seat, Cooper.”

  The soldier made a show of very reluctantly taking a seat across the desk from Warden Linder. Price ran her eyes up and down Bolan to take in his physical state and look for any body language cues. “You’ve lost weight.”

  At the same time she blinked in Morse code: U-OK?

  “Food’s not as good as Gitmo,” Bolan replied.

  He blinked back. OK

  “You look a little pekid.”

  OUT? Price asked with her eyes.

  “Ain’t no palm trees or white sand beaches around here, neither.”

  NO.

  “You need to talk to me, Cooper.”

  “We have a deal.”

  Price blinked STOP to indicate she was no longer blinking in code. She had ascertained that Bolan was alive and well and didn’t want extraction. “We had a deal,” she continued. “You aren’t dead, nor have you been extraordinarily renditioned to a black site dungeon in Bucharest. But you still haven’t told us everything we want to know.”

  “I told you exactly what you wanted to know.”

  “Yes, but now we want to know everything you know.”

  Bolan lifted his chin. “Not a chance.”

  “You know I could whisper in Warden Linder’s ear what you did and why you’re here. Some of your fellow inmates might not like it.”

  Bolan grimaced.

  Price sighed and made a show of throwing the curve ball. “Heard the warden is considering giving you a conjugal.”