The Prisoner's Dilemma (27 page)

Reynie turned to see the others looking at him. Kate had gotten the window open and, apparently, had already said her goodbyes to Sticky and Constance. She was beaming at him—her old confident self—and despite his strange turmoil of emotion, Reynie couldn’t help but smile back. He hurried over and hugged her.

“Be careful,” he said.

Kate winked. “You know me.”

And with that, she leaped out the window.

N
one of them was prepared for Kate’s dramatic exit. They gasped in unison and jumped forward to grab her. But she was already out of reach, and bumping together at the open window they saw what Kate had done. At the last instant she had spun and kicked off against the window ledge—kicked off sideways, so that she hurtled several feet through the air, parallel to the wall, in a trajectory that brought her to a metal drainpipe, which she had latched on to with her astonishingly strong hands. Already she was scrambling down it toward the ground far below, as comfortable as a monkey in a tree. But once again Reynie and Sticky couldn’t help covering their eyes. They might trust Kate’s agility, but they had little reason to trust the drainpipe’s sturdiness.

“She’s down!” Constance whispered, to their relief. “She’s running around checking doors!”

Now the boys felt even more anxious, but they forced themselves to look. There she was, darting first to one door and then the next, trying each one gingerly, quietly, cautious lest someone be standing on the other side. After several tries one of the doors in the opposite wing opened, and Kate disappeared.

They watched the vacant courtyard for a while, but Kate didn’t reappear, and with a strange mixture of sadness and hope they closed the window. The boys applied themselves to righting the tilted bookcase. It was much harder to do without Kate, even more so to do it quietly, but with a good deal of straining they got the bookcase up again. At least now if someone glanced into the room it wouldn’t be instantly apparent that something was amiss. Anything more than a glance, of course, would reveal that an entire
person
was amiss—but Kate could use as many valuable extra seconds as her friends could give her.

In the tense minutes that followed, they stood perfectly still in the middle of the room, listening for sounds of an outcry or alarm. Then, just as their tentative hopes were blossoming into real optimism, they heard exactly what they had been listening for—exactly what they had wanted so badly not to hear. Distant shouts and crashes. Radios squawking. And worst of all, someone laughing. They looked at one another and then away again, not wanting to believe it, and too upset for words.

Eventually Constance hung her head and mumbled, “Here they come.”

Footsteps echoed in the hall, the door was unlocked and flung open, and Kate came sprawling into the room. She was panting and wobbly from her struggles, her hair had come loose from its ponytail, and her cheeks were bright red, but she seemed unhurt. Indeed, no sooner had she hit the floor than she was back on her feet and charging (staggering, really) at McCracken, who had so unceremoniously tossed her into the room. He was ready for her, and with a careless sweep of his arms he spun her about and sent her crashing to the floor again. This time her friends caught hold of her and held her back.

“Tsk, tsk,” said McCracken. “I thought we agreed to part on peaceful terms.”

“I never agreed to anything of the sort!” shouted Kate, still very worked up.

“Hmm,” said McCracken as Mr. Curtain, scowling, rolled into the room behind him. “It certainly
sounded
like you agreed. But then I was holding you upside down at the time, so perhaps I misunderstood you.”

“You didn’t waste any time, did you, Miss Wetherall?” Mr. Curtain snapped. “Any of
your
time, I should say—my own valuable time is a different matter. I have work to be doing!” Springing from his wheelchair, he strode angrily over to the huddled children. “Did I not say that any disturbances would be punished?” he said, already pulling on his shiny silver gloves.

“Fine!” Kate cried, raising her chin defiantly. “Get it over with and go back to your precious, nasty work!”

“As you wish,” Mr. Curtain said, and elbowing Kate aside he seized Reynie by the arm.

Reynie felt as if he’d been struck by lightning. Everything flashed white and red and flew apart, as if the room itself had exploded, and searing pain seemed to erupt from every part of his body at once—his face, his hands, even his toes—and then he was lying on the floor. When the fiery pain subsided and his eyes regained their focus, the familiar faces of his friends swam blearily above him—and Kate was weeping.

“It isn’t fair!” she was shouting furiously through her tears. “It wasn’t Reynie who tried to escape! You never said—”

“I decide what is fair and what isn’t,” Mr. Curtain said coolly. “You will all do well to remember that. Especially you, Miss Wetherall. The next time my work is interrupted, I shall extend the punishment to everyone.” He leaped into his wheelchair again and spun it about. “McCracken, have S.Q. come see me in my work space. Apparently I must remind him how to lock a door.”

“Funny,” said McCracken, his brow wrinkling, “it was locked when we came in just now.” He looked at Kate askance. “Were you really so clever as to lock it behind you to throw off suspicion?”

“A monkey would have thought of that, McCracken,” said Mr. Curtain irritably. “Perhaps in the future I shall
hire
monkeys—they certainly couldn’t do a worse job. In the meantime you will post a guard in the corridor as an added precaution.” With that Mr. Curtain shot from the room, and McCracken, wagging his finger at the children in amused disapproval, followed after him and locked the door.

It took some time for Kate to calm down. She kept apologizing to Reynie, then railing against Mr. Curtain as her friends tried to shush her. Finally, when Reynie managed a weak smile and laid a finger to his lips, she got control of herself. “Right,” she said, wiping away her tears. “Sorry. I’ll be quiet. I’ve already done enough.”

“Not you,” said Sticky through clenched teeth. “Them.”

“He’s right,” Reynie said. “It isn’t your fault. We all wanted you to go, didn’t we? So stop beating yourself up. Anyway, I’m already feeling better. You know it doesn’t last that long.”

Kate remembered all too well how long it lasted—Mr. Curtain had used those gloves on her before, too—and if memory served her, Reynie probably still felt queasy and shaken but was putting on a brave face. She nodded and said nothing more, busying herself instead with retying her ponytail. It was no help dwelling on what was already done. But she still felt terrible, all the same.

“What happened out there?” Constance asked her.

“We’re in some sort of complex,” Kate muttered. “There are high walls all around it, and they’ve put razor wire on top of the walls. Sharpe spotted me before I could find a way out.”

Kate didn’t much feel like talking, but naturally the others kept asking questions, and soon she had told them everything. She had sneaked through several corridors of the building without encountering a soul, then gone out an exterior door and found herself in what looked to be an abandoned construction site. There were great mounds of rubble and debris everywhere, and scattered heavy equipment, all surrounded by those high walls. She’d been spotted right away, unfortunately, and was too busy running for her life to investigate properly, but it was clear the complex was in the process of being demolished or renovated. Or had been, at any rate—there were no workers anywhere, and everything was as still as a graveyard.

“It’s like a fortress or a military base or something,” Kate said. “I don’t know. I was pretty focused on finding a gap in that wall. One part at the back of the complex looked ready to topple—I think there was an accident; there’s a huge crane nearby—but there wasn’t a single hole big enough for even a rabbit to squeeze through. And there’s a gate at the front, as high as the walls and topped with the same kind of wire, and it was guarded by Ten Men, but I got an idea that I could maybe smash through it with the Salamander, except that I worried about that wire coming down on top of me—”

“Wait a minute,” Reynie said. “Back up. You were driving the Salamander?”

“I was
going
to. On my first time running around I saw it parked in a sort of big temporary shed, so I doubled back to it after I got the idea about the gate. I wasn’t sure I would go through with that, but I figured I would have time to decide that after I stole the Salamander, provided I could get to it. That part turned out to be easy. The Ten Men weren’t really running, they were just kind of closing in on me, strolling along all casual and relaxed—you know how they do—about seven or eight of them by the end. But they’d left open a clear path to that shed, and I made a beeline for it…” Kate made a disgusted face. “I’ll bet you can guess who was sitting inside it, waiting for me.”

“McCracken,” the others said.

Kate nodded. “He was kneeling down so I couldn’t see him over the sides. I basically jumped into his arms. The only bright side is they didn’t think to search me again. I still have my rope and knife.”

“There’s more bright side to it than that,” Reynie said. “At least now we can figure out where we are.”

“We can?”

“Well, Sticky probably can, right?” Reynie said.

“Sure, we can at least narrow it down,” Sticky said, though he seemed uncertain why it should matter. “Only a few places in the Stonetown area fit Kate’s description—complexes of one kind or another that were being renovated when the funding ran out. It’s a big deal when work gets suspended on projects like that. It’s always in the papers.”

“Of course!” Kate said, her aspect brightening considerably.

“And from the sound of it,” Sticky continued, “I’d say we’re in a prison. Did you happen to see any guard towers?”

“Yes! Sharpe was up in one when he spotted me and called out to the others! Oh, how is it I didn’t realize it was a prison? An actual prison!” Kate rolled her eyes and snorted good-naturedly. Now that they were figuring something out, her miserable, guilty feeling was rapidly draining away. (Some people might have felt guilty for cheering up so quickly, but as it was in Kate’s nature to be cheerful, and to look excitedly forward instead of glumly backward, the thought didn’t even occur to her.)

“My guess is you were distracted by the Ten Men trying to capture you,” Reynie said with a smile. “Anyway, there can’t be many abandoned prisons within an hour’s drive of Stonetown, right? Sticky, is it Solipse Prison? I’m sure I remember reading about that one.”

Sticky shook his head. “I wish it were that easy. Solipse Prison and Third Island Prison were both slated for major renovation. Their prisoners were temporarily transferred elsewhere—at least it was supposed to be temporary—while the work was being done. The cell blocks and outbuildings were all to be demolished and rebuilt.”

“So quit beating around the bush,” Constance said. “Which one are we in? Haven’t you seen pictures of them somewhere? Surely both of them didn’t have a weird square building like this, with four sides going around a pathetic little courtyard.”

“Actually, that’s exactly the problem,” Sticky said. “Both prisons were built according to the same plan, and they were being renovated according to the same
new
plan. The administration buildings were to be left intact while everything else was torn down and rebuilt. I think it’s safe to say we’re in the administration building of one of those prisons—but I have no idea which one.”

“Good grief,” Kate said. “And we were so close!”

“We aren’t finished yet,” said Reynie. “Solipse Prison is due north of Stonetown, isn’t it, Sticky? And Third Island is due west?”

“That’s right,” Sticky said.

“Then I know where we are,” Reynie said. “And what’s more—I have a plan!”

Constance had her doubts about Reynie’s plan, but then Constance had doubts about everything. Everyone else was optimistic. Hadn’t Constance shown that she could transmit thoughts when she was sufficiently motivated? And when could she possibly be more motivated than now, when she was trapped in a prison and just waiting for Mr. Curtain to do his worst?

“Yes, but it’s an awful lot of information to communicate,” she said in a low, worried tone, “and I’ve had hardly any practice.”

“Come on, Constance!” Kate said, grinning. “It’s going to be great! Just like Reynie said, it’ll be perfect! We can let Mr. Benedict know where we are, but Mr. Curtain will have no clue that we did! Mr. Benedict will have the advantage again—he’ll have the element of surprise!”

Reynie chose not to point out that with the four of them being held hostage Mr. Benedict would still have a very tricky situation to deal with. The best thing now was to boost Constance’s confidence. In fact, that was why he had called for an “official meeting” of the Society. Outwardly it might seem that sitting in a circle on the floor was hardly different from what they had been doing before. But Reynie hoped it would remind Constance of the success they’d had in the past, and that the familiar arrangement and tone would have a calming effect on her.