Second Chance - Ryan Lock #8 Page 15

  But she had decided not to let it define who she was, or what she could become. That was why she had created Chance ‒ a kick-ass, white race warrior, who would lead her people to salvation. So if Freya was excited to the point of feeling sick, Chance was cold inside: focused; calm; ready for war.

  And the best part of all of this? Her rescuer was the man responsible for putting her here in the first place. The man who had denied Chance her destiny those years ago in San Francisco when he’d foiled not one but two attempts to kill the president.

  What could be more perfect, more poetic, than being freed by Ryan Lock? Not that she expected him to go along with their proposal. He would try to double-cross her, she was sure. But she wasn’t worried about that. Lock’s betrayal was already built into their plan.

  Someone tapped three times on the pipe that ran the length of the six cells in this part of the unit. It was Clarissa. She’d also been moved to the isolation cells after they’d killed Browell. Not that she’d been charged with anything for her part. And not that Chance cared too much either way. What were they going to do? Sentence her to another life-without-possibility-of-parole? Bring it on.

  Chance hunkered down next to the air vent.

  “You there, Chance?” whispered Clarissa.

  Damn, thought Chance. Clarissa was as dumb as a bunch of rocks. Where else would she be? On a beach with George Clooney? “What’s up, Clarissa?”

  “Just wanted to wish you good luck for today.”

  Chance smiled. “Thanks.”

  “Catch up this evening, right?”

  “Sure,” said Chance, still smiling.

  A half-hour later the cell-door slot slid open. A male guard’s voice said, “Something for your purse, baby.”

  “Thanks, sweetie,” said Chance, reaching for the foldable knife.

  The slot slid shut. Chance weighed the knife in the open palm of her right hand. She popped it open to check the sharpness of the blade. The edge was razor keen. She folded it closed, slipped it inside its plastic sheath, pulled down her panties, squatted and slowly inched it up inside her body.

  Now she was ready for the next stage of her journey to begin.

  53

  A green and silver California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation truck stood outside the warehouse, which was located in the middle of a small semi-derelict industrial complex on the north-eastern outskirts of Fresno. Inside, members of a hand-picked prisoner-transport team made up of US marshals and CDCR correctional officers drank from Styrofoam coffee cups, and checked their equipment for the final time, impatient to get moving.

  Lock and Ty had already been on site for twelve hours, running through how this would go down. Every single person on the transport team had been walked through the precise sequence of events. Around three a.m., they had taken an hour-long nap break in the truck. Both Ty and he were past masters at snatching sleep where they could.

  Originally they had thought about staging the escape on the second day of Chance being in court. In a real-world extraction that was the time frame Lock would have selected. It would have given the escort team time to relax. Their levels of vigilance would be less than optimal.

  Waiting for the second day had been ruled out for two reasons. First, a legal issue might arise that could blow them off course. Second, they didn’t want the kidnappers getting any antsier than they already were. So, day one, they had decided, was moving day.

  The challenge now was to stage an escape that looked credible, without anyone getting hurt or killed. With the second part in mind, and after a protracted negotiation, the transport team had agreed to give up their live ammunition. The two who would be carrying firearms would use blanks. In return, Ty and Lock had agreed they would do the same. That way they could stage an escape that looked credible without the risk of anyone taking a bullet. In case things went south, the two armed marshals had live rounds secreted on the truck. Both Ty and he had several magazines with live rounds attached to their front webbing. But anything already loaded in a weapon was a blank.

  Lock checked his watch. It was almost time for the transport convoy to leave for Chowchilla. Ty and he would wait here until they left to take up their position along the route.

  He jogged over to FBI Special Agent Mirales, who had volunteered to play the role of Chance during their practice run. She was climbing out of her CDCR jumpsuit as she chatted to Stan Petrovsky. It was an indication of the seriousness of the operation that they had both chosen to be there. They would be riding together in the rear escort vehicle, their presence in the convoy hidden by dark-tinted privacy glass.

  He reached out to shake her hand, then Petrovsky’s. “I just wanted to thank you both. This wasn’t an easy approach to agree to.”

  “I don’t know, it’s been kind of fun playing the bad gal for once.” Mirales smiled.

  Petrovsky was a lot less light-hearted. “Just make sure you don’t fuck up on your end.”

  “I won’t.”

  “You’d better not, because if Vaden goes missing while she’s with you there’s going to be the shit storm to end all shit storms, and I plan on retiring with a clean record on a full pension.”

  The second part of the plan involved swapping Carmen for Chance. At that point a second, larger, team of law-enforcement officers would swoop in to scoop up Chance and return her to custody. They also hoped to grab a kidnapper or two. Despite having names from Sergeant Miller, the two men most likely involved had, unsurprisingly, gone to ground. They had the evidence on them, they just didn’t have the bodies.

  The FBI had provided them with a vehicle. It was a barely used double-cab Ford pickup that had been confiscated in a drugs bust and fitted with a tracking device. A drone was also being deployed in case the tracker failed or they lost the signal.

  “I want Chance back in prison just as much as anyone else here,” Lock reminded Petrovsky.

  “You’d better, because it’s your ass if this goes south.”

  One of the transport team marshals signaled that they were about to move.

  “Good luck,” said Mirales.

  Lock gave a curt nod. He was hoping that luck, good or bad, wasn’t going to be a factor.

  54

  Handcuffed, and manacled, with a belly chain linking the other two, Chance glanced down at the baggy orange jumpsuit. “This is bullcrap,” she said, coming to a sudden halt.

  The female US marshal flanking her right-hand side gave her a sideways glance. “Problem?”

  “Making me wear this,” she said. “It makes me look guilty. I should be allowed to wear my own clothes to court. Or at least give me a belt or something so half my ass isn’t showing.”

  The female marshal prodded Chance with the end of her baton. “Keep moving.”

  Chance’s eyes narrowed. “Or what?”

  “Or we’ll pick you up and toss you on this truck.”

  “I’d like to see you try,” said Chance, as she began walking.

  They had reached the sallyport. The guard Chance had hoped to see was waiting for them. She had worried his shift would be switched at the last second, or that he’d be reassigned to another unit. He had been her lifeline this past year, bringing her whatever she wanted and taking messages out. And all it had cost her were a few stolen sticky moments alone with him. A small price to pay for her freedom, she figured.

  “Okay, let’s do this,” the guard said, walking toward the transport team.

  Stepping back, he opened a door that led into a side room where a female correctional officer was waiting to search Chance for a final time before she was walked out. The officer had already been paid to make sure that any search was negative, regardless of what her torch beam illuminated when Chance bent over.

  Chance walked toward the open door, shooting the woman a death-stare look as she went. They fell in step.

  “Where’s she going?” Chance asked the male guard.

  “Peace of mind,” said the woman. “I’m going to be sitti
ng next to you in the van, remember.”

  Chance stopped suddenly in the doorway. Behind her, the transport team piled into each other.

  Turning back, Chance stared at the female guard. “You sure that’s it? You got a dykey vibe about you, girl. I think maybe you just want an excuse to sneak a peek at my coochy.”

  One of the other guards stifled a snicker.

  The male guard, Chance’s lover, puffed out his chest. “I hope you’re not suggesting that any of my staff aren’t up to performing a basic body cavity search.”

  A male marshal put up his hand toward his female colleague. “We’ll let them do their job here, and we’ll do ours.”

  The woman let it go with the briefest nod. Her face was still flushed from Chance’s comments a few seconds before. “Fine,” she said, conceding the point.

  Chance stepped into the room. The door closed on her and the female guard, who wouldn’t meet her eye. That wasn’t uncommon here. It was an open secret among the officers that anyone messing with Chance would face consequences on the outside. And if Chance’s friends in the white supremacist movement couldn’t get to the guard, they would get to their family. No one wanted to deal with that.

  The message that Chance sent out was simple. Make her life hard on the inside and her brothers and sisters would make your life hell on the outside.

  “Okay, Vaden,” the female guard barked, loud enough that everyone outside would hear. “Assume the position.”

  Chance rested her head against the wall, her legs splayed out at an angle, as the guard unclipped her torch from her belt.

  A few seconds later, she announced, “Clear!”

  Chance was led back to the door and handed back to the transport team. They fell in around her and walked her though the sallyport, down a corridor and out into the yard. The van was waiting, a rumble of smoke spurting from the tail pipe. They led her onto it and sat her in an aisle seat about halfway back.

  One of the guards took the wheel, and the vehicle pulled through two sets of gates and out into the world beyond.

  55

  Ty tugged a ball cap low to shield his eyes from the sun. He sank down in the truck’s passenger seat as a California Highway Patrol motorcycle cop sped past. The last thing anyone needed was a cop, who had no idea what was going down, being taken with a bout of curiosity and stopping to ask questions.

  In the driver’s seat of the Ford Super Duty F-450 truck, Lock tapped out a beat on the top of the steering wheel and looked down at his cell phone, checking the time.

  Any moment now the van carrying Chance, with the two escort vehicles accompanying it, would be rolling down this stretch of highway toward them.

  His cell vibrated, signaling an incoming call. He tapped the screen. “Yeah?”

  It was the voice he’d come to recognize and loathe, the voice of the kidnapper. “You boys all ready for the big show?”

  Lock took a long, slow breath. He’d been expecting this call. He knew the kidnappers would get antsy as soon as something they wanted was on the line. But he needed to remind them that this was a two-way street. He got them Chance, but they had to be able to deliver Carmen to him.

  “We’re in place, but I have to speak with Carmen first or the deal’s off,” he told them.

  “And if she ain’t here or I don’t agree?”

  “Then I make a call, the authorities turn back to Chowchilla and your heroine Freya Vaden rots away the rest of her miserable life in prison. Plus they come looking for you, real hard.”

  “You do any of that shit and your lady dies.” He sounded pissy. Lock figured that was good. It showed he recognized that he needed Lock as much as Lock needed him.

  Ty shot Lock an anxious glance from the passenger seat. Not that his anxiety prevented him reaching into a brown-paper bag on the dash and pulling out a protein bar, which he started to wolf down.

  Lock took another breath. “Which means neither of us gets what we want. You want me to free Chance, then I need to know you’ve held up your end of the bargain and that Carmen’s alive. If I can’t speak with her now, I have to assume you’ve already welshed on your part of the deal.”

  “Okay, I’ll put her on.”

  Lock felt a rush of relief spread through him as he heard Carmen say, “Ryan?”

  “Hey, this is going to all be over soon. You okay?”

  “Yes.” She sounded close to tears. It was understandable. Lock could feel a lump forming in his throat. One thing was for sure, even if he got Carmen back safely, this wasn’t going to be over. Not by a long way. He was coming after these assholes for what they’d put her through. They could get a shuttle to the moon and they still wouldn’t be safe from his wrath.

  Ty shoved the last of the protein bar into his mouth, and nudged Lock with his elbow. Lock looked up to see the lead vehicle of the prison convoy appear at the brow of the hill.

  “Listen, Carmen, I have to go, but you hang in there. I’m going to be with you real soon and this’ll be over. You hear me?”

  Before she could answer, there was a rustling sound as the phone was taken from her. The call died.

  Lock put the phone into his pocket, and started the engine as the prison van with Chance on board picked up speed down the hill toward them. Ty grabbed his duffel bag, opened the passenger door of the F-450 and jumped out.

  “Ty, hang on.”

  Lock reached down and grabbed a spare set of ear protectors from the side compartment. He tossed them to his partner, who caught them one-handed and slipped them around his neck. He gave Lock a thumbs-up, slammed the passenger door, and moved fast toward a dried-out culvert that ran alongside the road. Two seconds later he had disappeared from view.

  Spinning the steering wheel, Lock began to edge out onto the road, the nose of the truck pointing at an angle up the hill. He reached down to his webbing, making sure that he had his Gerber tactical knife to hand. Very soon, if the plan went as intended, he would need it.

  Chance sat on the bench seat, sandwiched between two US marshals clad in black tactical gear, and rolled her neck. “Suspension on this thing’s shit. I’m going to need a massage when I get out of here.”

  She cast a suggestive glance toward the marshal who was sitting to her left.

  “Full body,” she added, just in case he had missed her meaning.

  He turned toward her a fraction. “Shut up.”

  Chance’s smile never broke. “The dominant type. I like it.” She smirked, then switched her attention to the woman on her other side. “What about you, Princess? You want to break out the hot oil and have us some alone time? Prison’s really opened up my sexual spectrum, if you know what I mean.”

  Next to Chance, FBI Special Agent Mirales bit her tongue. It was best not to get drawn into any conversation with Freya Vaden. From reading her jacket, she knew that Vaden was a master manipulator of people. That, coupled with her unflinching ideological beliefs, was what made her so dangerous. At the same time, Mirales wasn’t entirely lacking in empathy for what Freya Vaden the child had gone through to turn her into the monster beside her.

  After Freya’s father, a leading member of the Aryan Brotherhood, had gone to prison, her mother had passed. Freya had ended up in the care of the State of California and was sent to live with a foster family where she was subjected to years of physical, emotional and sexual abuse. Several members of the family had been involved in the sexual abuse, and by the time anyone was alerted to what was going on, Freya was already an adult and the damage was done.

  Mirales shifted on the hard bench seat. Her body was already drenched in sweat from the heavy-duty US marshal’s tactical gear she had borrowed for the journey. Marshal Petrovsky had been less than happy about her being part of the security detail inside the van but she had been insistent. It was important that Chance’s initial escape went smoothly, if Carmen’s life was to be preserved.

  “What do you say, Princess?” Chance prompted.

  Mirales put on her game day face. “Thin
k I’ll pass.”

  Chance smiled and sank back into the seat, rattling the chain of her ankle restraints. If they’d been on their A game they would have knotted the chain to shorten it. But they hadn’t. “Your loss,” she said.

  Ty climbed into the cab of the escape vehicle, a van that closely matched, in color and markings, the one that was being used in the convoy. He fired up the engine, and watched as the very top of the transport van carrying Chance rolled past him down the hill.

  Ty began to count down slowly from ten. At six he eased off the parking brake and tapped the gas pedal, easing the van out of from its hiding place and onto the edge of the freeway.

  The tires of Lock’s pickup spun for a second before they found traction. A cloud of dust spun out from underneath them as he gently placed more pressure on the gas pedal.

  With a side-on view to the convoy, he watched as the lead Suburban moved past him, a ten-foot gap between its rear and the front grille of the transport van. There had been no dry run for this part of the procedure, yet it was easily the most crucial. A fraction too much speed and he’d kill everyone inside, Chance included. A fraction too slow, and he could miss his shot.

  His mind calmed as his eyes stayed level on the side of the van. A fraction of a second later, the front of his vehicle made contact with the rear side of the transport van. It fishtailed violently, the rear spinning out.

  The airbag tucked inside the steering wheel deployed with a whoosh of compressed air, pushing Lock forcefully back into his seat. As the final breath of air filled it, Lock’s hand was already around the handle of his Gerber.

  He pulled the knife from his webbing, slashed at the airbag with one hand, and allowed it to deflate. He grabbed for the seatbelt and cut through that too. Then he shouldered the driver’s door open and, drawing his SIG, stepped out of the truck.

  With her feet braced hard to the floor, Chance watched as the two marshals flanking her jerked forward like puppets with their strings cut. She used the natural momentum of the collision impact to fold herself over at the waist. Spreading her legs as far as the ankle chain would allow, she lowered her front-cuffed hands to her crotch.