کتاب 07-06

6

It was five days before Father Storey spoke again.

“Michael?” the old man muttered, in a muzzy tone of bemusement and curiosity, and a moment later Mike Lindqvist pushed the curtain back and ducked into the ward.

“Did you call for me, ma’am?” he asked Harper.

The sound of Father Storey’s voice jackknifed Harper’s pulse, made her blood strum with surprise. She opened her mouth to tell Michael that it had been the old man, then thought better of it. Michael would carry the news to Allie and who knew where that would lead.

“I did,” Harper said. “I need your help. I need you to carry a note to Allie.”

“That’s no trouble,” he said.

“I’m afraid I require a bit more than that. I want to get together with the Fireman again. And I want Allie to go with me. Allie and Renée and Don Lewiston. You should be there, too, if it can be managed. And—if at all possible—Gil Cline and the Mazz. Is there a way . . . any way . . . such a thing could be done?”

Michael paled. He rested one cheek of his ass against the edge of the counter and lowered his head and plucked at the copper wires of his little goatee. Finally he looked up.

“What’s this meeting about?”

“The possibility of leaving. The possibility of staying. It’s past time for some of us to make plans about our future. Father Storey is stable for the moment. But if his condition changes suddenly, we’ll want to be ready.”

“For the worst?”

“For whatever.”

Michael said, “If Carol finds you all out on the island together, making secret plans with the Fireman, she’ll lock every one of you up. Or worse.”

“We could face worse even if we do nothing.”

Michael swiped one hand across his freckled forehead and bowed his head in thought again. At last he nodded, uneasily.

“I know how to do it. It isn’t exactly like breaking them out of San Quentin. Renée visits the prisoners for lunch every day . . . that’s when they meet for their little book club. That’s the only time those boys ever come out of the meat locker. Renée tidied up a far corner of the basement, put down carpet and some easy chairs, so they’d have a nice place to read and talk. While they’re meeting, whoever is on guard steps into the meat locker to clean up. Empty the bucket they pee in during the day. Gather up the dirty clothes. That sort of thing. So maybe while he’s in there, the Mazz comes back, says, ‘Oops, I forgot my book.’ And then on his way out closes the meat-locker door. The guard is stuck in there for the whole hour. He can kick and shout all he wants. That meat locker is pretty soundproof with the door clapped shut. They’ll never hear him during a noisy lunch, not with the trapdoor closed.

“But Renée and the men would have to walk out past all the people in the cafeteria.”

Michael shook his head. “There’s another way out of the basement. There’s some steps that lead up to the parking lot out back. I guess that’s where the trucks brought in supplies. Those doors are locked from the outside with two padlocks, but I could make sure they were unlocked. Renée and Gil and the Mazz would have to be back by one A.M., when their little book club wraps up for the day. Renée lets the guard out, says, ‘Sorry! We didn’t know you were stuck in here, couldn’t hear you over all the noise from people above us.’ Whoever pulls meat-locker duty will be some pissed, but I bet they won’t even tell Ben Patchett. Too embarrassed. Also, who wants to wind up sucking a rock for two days, when no one got hurt and everything turned out fine?”

Nick sat watching them both, his knees drawn up under his chin. He couldn’t know what they were talking about, didn’t read lips, but his face was as ill as if he were watching the two of them handle sticks of TNT.

“Good, Michael. That’s good,” Harper said. “It’s simple. With this kind of thing, the simpler the better, don’t you think?”

He ran his thumb along the tight twists of his beard. “I think it’s just great . . . as long as the prisoners don’t decide to knock Renée down and run for it as soon as they’re out of the basement.”

“They wouldn’t need to knock her down,” Harper said. “If they decided to run, Renée would run with them. But I think . . . I think she can convince them they have a better chance of long-term survival if they ally themselves with the Fireman. They don’t just want to escape, they want to last.” She had not forgotten about the way Gil spoke of the Fireman, with a mix of quiet admiration and something approaching reverence.

“Yeah, well. Maybe. But maybe when they get out of the basement, it would be best if Allie was waiting for them out in the parking lot, with a rifle over her shoulder. She doesn’t have to point it at them. It’s enough just for her to have it on her. When Allie isn’t confined to the girls’ dorm, she’s usually doing one punishment assignment or another. I could arrange it so she has to scrub pans that night. Ben Patchett works out the daily punishment details, but he lets me hand them out. So Allie collects all the pans from the kitchen and goes outside and finds the gun I’ve left for her. She’s waiting by the basement doors when Renée comes out with the prisoners. She’d have to be back by one A.M., too.”

Anxiety tickled Harper’s stomach. It seemed like there was a lot that could go wrong.

“What about Don Lewiston?” Harper said.

“He’s easy. He spends most of the night down along the water, tending to his fishing poles. No one minds him. He’s not under observation. He can meet you at the dock, row you across.”

“And you?” Harper asked. “Will you come, Michael? I’d like it if you were there. I think Allie would, too.”

He showed her a small, apologetic smile and gave his head a curt shake. “Nope. Better not. I’ll make sure I’ve been assigned guard duty here in the infirmary, so I can slip you out and cover for you while you’re gone. I don’t need to be a part of your conference, anyway. Allie can fill me in later.” He looked sidelong at Nick and said, “Take the kid, too. Bet he’d love to see his sister. And John.”

Harper said, “I’m fighting the urge to hug you very, very hard, Michael Lindqvist.”

“Why fight it?” he asked.