The Thieves of Darkness (4 page)

He had risen through the ranks of the Akbiquestan army, achieving the rank of colonel through hard work, bribery, and the elimination of the one general who disapproved of his inhumane tendencies. Barabas had retired with a full pension and a full bank account courtesy of his innovative, capitalistic acumen and his ability to blackmail and strong-arm the people and country he had sworn to protect. He had accepted the job as warden for Chiron, as it provided the perfect haven from which to run his varied enterprises, including “disappearing” people—some of whom didn’t come through the judicial system—into the bowels of their cells and eventually their unmarked graves.

Barabas shone his flashlight about his apartment, found his radio, and thumbed the talk button. “Jamer!” he shouted. “If you don’t get the power back on in the next thirty seconds, don’t bother coming back.”

He waited for a reply but nothing came.

“Jamer?” Barabas didn’t have a slow build to anger; he was already fuming. Anyone who didn’t snap to, anyone who crossed him always paid the price. And Jamer would be paying the highest. But then he recalled the fear in which his men held him. They knew his lack of hesitation in putting a bullet through the head of an underling and tossing his body into the valley. They knew his wartime reputation for slaughtering the innocent for a bottle of vodka. Jamer was his second in command, and if he wasn’t answering, he wasn’t capable of answering.

Barabas went to his closet and quickly dressed in his fatigues, cursing the two guards the entire time. He grabbed his pistol, radio, and flashlight and headed out the door.

T
HE GUARDS HAD
been lulled into passivity. The triple loss of power had clouded their minds to suspicion, all thinking that the weather had finally taken its toll on the generator’s overused circuits. Most of them actually welcomed the dark—no one would be the wiser to their nodding off in the 105-degree heat.

They collectively smiled as they heard Barabas’s anger on their radios.
Though none of them voiced their opinion, for fear of reprisal, they all internally rejoiced that maybe for once the warden would have to endure the desert heat that they suffered under.

The prisoners were all sleeping, unaware of the situation, as the cells and hallways all lacked lighting and electricity to begin with, the natural light of the sun and moon being the sole source of illumination to the prison blocks as it had been for a century and a half.

It would suit them all just fine, guards and prisoners alike, if the power didn’t come back for days. It wasn’t as if they needed it. It wasn’t as if anyone was going anywhere.

M
ICHAEL SLIPPED THE
guard’s key into the lock, ripped open the cell door, and locked eyes with KC. She stared back at him, her face a mask, devoid of emotion. She was dressed in torn black coveralls that weren’t standard prison attire; they fit too perfectly. Her face and hands were smudged with dirt and filth. Michael’s mind melted to confusion as he looked upon the woman who had left him ten days ago with no contact since. The silence of confusion quickly slipped to anger. KC was too smart, too capable to be here by accident. Michael realized that the month they had spent together was a lie, her deception exceeding all bounds.

Suddenly the guard’s radio clipped to Michael’s belt emitted a burst of static, and words in an incomprehensible language.

KC looked at Michael and finally broke the moment. “He said, ‘There’s been a breach,’ something about ‘no one gets out alive, shoot on sight.’”

Michael heard the silent prison explode into chaos on the floors above. His focus quickly returning, he tucked his emotions away along with the question of KC’s foreign language abilities, and quietly asked, “Where’s Simon?”

“Michael?” the voice called from the neighboring cell.

Michael keyed the cell door to the left and tore it open. Simon stood there, at his full six-one, wearing a dark shirt and pants, both of which were shredded, barely clinging to his taut body. He looked more like
a soldier than a priest. His rugged face was bruised and bloodied, his jet-black hair matted with sweat, the gray flecks and streaks more pronounced. His calloused knuckles bore the welts of someone who had recently used his hands for something beyond prayer.

Simon said nothing as he looked back at Michael; he knew what he was thinking. He and KC were in this together. Michael wasn’t sure who had put whom in danger but now was not the time to sort things out. Michael tossed him one of the guards’ pistols. Simon pulled back the slide, ejected the clip, verified everything was working, and readied the gun.

“Let’s go.”

As the three ran down the corridor, Michael was already thinking how the entire jailbreak had just skidded out of control. Unless he thought quickly, no one would survive.

M
ICHAEL
, S
IMON, AND
KC slipped through the rear door and into the night. Michael again heard the foreign voice over the guard’s radio. He opened his black bag, pulled the frequency jammer, and affixed its magnetized back against the standpipe adjacent to the door. He flipped the switch, watching as the small red lights began to glow and flicker. He checked the guard’s radio; white-noise static cried out. The small black box had jammed all radio communication.

Michael reached back into his bag and pulled out the two BASE chutes, handing one to KC. “Do you know how to use one of these things?” Michael asked.

“What do you think?” KC said with no sense of humor.

“Just a yes or no answer,” Michael exploded.

“Yes,” she snapped.

“Strap it on, then.”

“Where are we going?” she asked as she affixed the pack to her back.

Michael pointed to the cliff’s edge one hundred yards away, across the wide-open range in front of the prison.

Michael tossed the second chute to Simon. “You know how to—”

Simon held up his hand as he quickly strapped himself into the harness.

Both KC and Simon realized at that moment that Michael’s black bag, his bag of tricks, was empty.

“What about you?” KC said as she tucked her long blonde hair inside her shirt.

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll meet you down there.”

“No way.” Simon glared at Michael. “Take mine. I’ll find another way down.”

“I said don’t worry about me. I’ll get down.” Michael pointed at the stretch of land they needed to cross. “On my signal, you both run like hell and dive out as far as you can off that cliff. It’s three thousand feet and sheer. Throw your pilot chute after a three count and ride it out into the desert.”

“We can’t run fifty miles of desert,” KC whispered through gritted teeth.

Michael glared at KC. “I thought you liked extreme sports.”

Simon and KC looked at the barren wasteland before them, pulled out the small pilot chutes from their BASE packs, and gripped them tightly.

Michael held out his arm, motioning them to wait. He glanced at his watch, watching the seconds tick down, pulled the small remote from his pocket, its high frequency operating above the jammed radio frequencies, and thumbed the switch.

The explosion echoed off the far side of the prison, its roar climbing up into the night. Simon and KC took off in an all-out sprint for the cliff.

Without a word, Michael raced in the opposite direction.

B
ARABAS STARED AT
the open and empty cells of the two Europeans. He knew he should have forgone the ritual morning execution and just shot the man and woman in the head upon their arrival.

He tried his radio but found it a static mess. Not only were the lights out, and all the electricity, but so were all of the handheld radios. Everything electronic was fried. Which was why he was thankful for
his good old-fashioned gun. No electronics, simple reliable mechanics. He pulled back the slide, chambered a bullet, and headed through the execution room.

A sudden explosion reverberated through the halls, startling Barabas and notching up his anger tenfold. Without thought he raced past his electric chair and chopping block and headed for the door.

Barabas had been paid fifty thousand dollars to ensure the deaths of the man and woman. He had taken delivery from someone who acted as their judge and jury, a man who paid him a thirty-thousand-dollar bonus above his going rate for such things to ensure Barabas’s expeditiousness, discretion, and silence. Barabas had a reputation for efficiency and ruthlessness; he was afraid of nothing and never failed in his dealings. But the judge-and-jury man had raised something in Barabas that he had never felt before: fear. He had heard the saying that everyone is afraid of something. Well, Barabas had found what scared him. If he didn’t ensure the death of his two escaped prisoners, there was no doubt that the judge-and-jury man would return to ensure his.

Barabas charged out the back door and looked around. He saw the black box with the blinking lights affixed, tore it off the wall, threw it to the ground, and crushed it under his boot. He flipped the button on his radio and smiled as it sang to life.

“There has been an escape; all guards, shoot to kill.”

He looked across the yard at his jeep, his 1972 jeep, his jeep without any electronics to speak of. He hopped into the seat and breathed a sigh of relief as the jeep started right up. He turned on the headlights and jammed down the gas pedal, heading out of the parking lot toward the front of the building.

KC
AND
S
IMON
ran across the open ground in front of the prison. Simon was fast, but KC passed him right by. She ran silently, her arms and legs pistoning, a blur in the night. They were enveloped in darkness but could see the bluish outline of the cliff ahead. They held tightly to the small primer chute in their hands. Simon didn’t look back at the prison towers or battlements, but he knew the bullets would be there
any second. And though they might not see their running targets, a contingent of rapid-firing guards would very likely strike their mark. Simon had been under fire before but he wasn’t sure if KC had ever truly experienced the fear that came with being under a barrage of bullets. She was a good thief, as good as Michael. Their capture was not her fault. They had fallen victim to something neither could have anticipated.

And even though the gunfire could start at any minute, their situation now was preferable to sitting in the prison behind them. They had a chance, a chance given to them by Michael. Simon hoped Michael wasn’t sacrificing himself for their survival; he hoped he truly had a way to get off this godforsaken rock.

U
TTER CONFUSION RIPPLED
through the prison, with guards shouting, stumbling through the dark halls, and calling out to one another. And then, like an infection, the prisoners caught on, aware that one of their comrades in crime had jumped ship. They began shouting, cheering, banging anything they could against their cell walls. It was as if hell had suddenly awakened, crying out, cheering on those who would defy inevitable death.

The guards didn’t know which way to turn. They ran to the battlements, peering out into the night, but were blind; they raised their rifles as if they’d somehow catch sight of whoever had slipped their grasp.

S
IMON AND
KC heard the chaos erupt within the prison walls. Simon chanced a glance over his shoulder and saw the silhouettes and shadows of the guards scurrying about the ramparts and battlements, guns raised. He braced himself for the inevitable fusillade, turned back, and ran harder.

And the gunfire erupted. Bullets hit and skittered on the rocky ground around them. Simon could hear the high-pitched whizzing as the full metal jackets sailed past. The reports of the guns sounded like thunder as they echoed around the mountain.

Ten yards ahead Simon spied the cliff’s edge. He turned to KC, saw her focus and speed up. Side by side they came to the edge and
without hesitation, without slowing a bit, dove straight out, sailing into the night.

A
S
M
ICHAEL RACED
for the woods, he heard the roar from the prison confines, the inmates on the verge of riot. He did not know their crimes, he did not know their hearts, but a sentence in Chiron was certain death. Michael knew his friends did not deserve to die, no matter what they had done. This was not a place for the carrying out of justice, this was a place of death, a place with no regard for guilt or innocence. He hoped that those left behind would find salvation, though it would never be here on this lifeless rock.

Michael ran along in the shadows a quarter mile to where he had hidden his parachute. He hoped his lungs would hold out long enough for him to make it there and all the way to the cliff without exploding. Michael cursed himself, cursed everything around him. He was always a careful guy, but he had opted not to bring the extra, redundant BASE jump chute. He never imagined he would be breaking out two people, let alone that the second would be KC. He struggled to keep his mind focused, the swirl of emotions impeding his every thought, his mind vacillating between love and hate, fear and anger, deception and honesty. He had no idea why KC and Simon were here or what they had done. All he knew was that he wanted answers, all the answers, if they all got out of here.

Michael made it to the tree line and quickly found his discarded chute. He pulled his knife and cut away the main chute line from the harness. He wasted no time, strapping the harness back on his body, praying that the reserve chute was packed right.

Without a moment’s thought, he charged back toward the prison.

B
ARABAS’S JEEP ROUNDED
the corner, his headlights falling upon a man in a full-out sprint. It wasn’t one of his prisoners; it wasn’t the man or the woman. Barabas didn’t know who it was, but it was obvious he was responsible for the escape. Barabas aimed his jeep right at the running man, leaned out the doorless side, pointed his gun, and hit the gas.

The headlights drew the guards’ attention. They all looked out from the battlements and saw the jeep gaining quickly on the running man, and as if in automatic response, they raised their rifles and began shooting. Gunfire echoed throughout the valley, the trigger-happy guards reveling in the fact that they could take advantage of the moment and enjoy some target practice. What had once been a dull evening filled with no electricity and boredom had suddenly blossomed into excitement as they all smiled and shouted with each pull of the trigger.