ADX Praxis (The Red Lake Series Book 3) Read online

  And at Praxis Prison today, it was announced that the infamous Chinese spy Zhou Zhengzhong died in his cell. He was reported to have died of natural causes.”

  Harry turned off the radio. “Surprise, surprise!”

  Barton shook his head, “At least that’s one body we won’t have to dig up.”

  “Maybe they’ve learned. I’ll bet they announce he was cremated.”

  “Have to get Lou to call and ask.”

  The two men sat in amiable silence. It might have been Afghanistan, Africa or Latin America, sitting around another fire during another obscure war, trying to figure out who was on your side and where the threats lie.

  “Nothing left to chase. Not until we get our hands on the one called Kurt.”

  “I don’t know,” said Dirk. “A guy like that has to have a real life somewhere, right?”

  “I suppose?”

  “That means drivers license, credit cards. If they’re calling him a John Doe they don’t have ID or if they do they figure it’s fake.”

  “So?”

  “He probably has his real stuff stashed. I think we should checkout the motel he was staying in.”

  Harry smiled. “It’s a long shot, but we’ll do it tomorrow.

  *

  Paula lay on her back and stared at the ceiling. The streetlight cast long shadows across the plaster. She wondered how she had let it happen, but she was lying to herself, she knew it was a choice. Harry had ticked her off, by the time she finally chose to listen to the dozen messages he left it was too late.

  Her ex stirred next to her in the bed. She listened to his heavy rhythmic breathing. He rolled over and she felt his arm slide across her chest, his hand instinctively pulling her close to himself in his sleep. Paula smelled his aftershave and on the sheets the scent of sex.

  She did not mean for it too happen. It was a mistake to come. It was Harry’s idea. She should have said no. There was too much history with her ex, too much unresolved passion buried beneath a thin layer of feigned indifference.

  From the first night she had felt aroused to be near him. The sex had always been good. They parted not because he was the son-of-a-bitch she described to Harry, the name she used to cover her ambivalent feelings about leaving him, rather they divorced because he needed her too much. When they were married his love seemed smothering but more than once Harry’s casual indifference to her presence in his life left her thinking of her ex. More than once it was Brad she thought of, not Harry, as she climaxed amid a tangle of sheets, heavy breathing, and guttural grunts.

  Doing it with Brad didn’t actually count, she told herself. Sex with an ex wasn’t really cheating. The thought was a lie.

  Harry probably cheated, she told herself. That was what she thought the night she could not reach him. It was her jealousy, mixed with the memories of good times with Brad, and two bottles of wine that led her into his bed. And it had been good. That night and the next morning. She felt no compunction, no guilt, not until she learned Harry had been arrested, set up for murder.

  What to do? She asked herself. Somewhere far off in the night she heard the lonely wail of a siren, followed by another and then joined by one more. They sounded like howl of coyotes that sang of danger in the night.

  *

  Gavin Gaines lay next to his wife. She breathed lightly, her warm breath on his neck, the faint odor of garlic remaining from their spaghetti dinner. In bed he was not the sheriff, but simply a man, Jane’s husband. He wondered how many more years they would have together? Many he hoped.

  Insomnia was a rarity in his life, but tonight sleep eluded him. Who was the John Doe in his jail? He suspected he might never know. The man would be released for security reasons, the event forgotten, and Samantha Quillings killer would never be punished, at least this side of the judgment seat. Gavin believed in God and final judgment. He trusted the scales of justice would be balanced one day. For now he could only play his part.

  Espionage was alien to his world. Murder, car thefts, domestic fights, petty thefts, bar fights, accidental deaths, speeders, and traffic jams were his purview. Generally Canaan County was peaceable. He wanted it that way again. If the price was to see Samantha’s killer walk away he would live with it.

  At some point he drifted off to sleep. The phone woke him. The bedside alarm clock read 3:45.

  “Gaines, here.”

  “This is Lawson, sir, over at the jail. I’m sorry to wake you sir but I thought you would want to know.”

  “Know what? Get to the point!” He was irritated to be roused from his slumber.

  “Its about that suspect you brought in for murder. The one they said was a federal agent.”

  “I know the man, what about him?

  “Somebody put a homemade shiv into him.”

  “Is he dead? You said ‘was’ before.”

  “No sir, he’s on the way to St. Catherine’s Hospital. The medics said he should live but he might need surgery.”

  “Thank you Deputy.”

  Gaines hung up. For the rest of the night he stared at his ceiling while answers eluded him.

  Chapter 57

  When the knife went in the first time Kurt was asleep. With the second thrust, pain shot through him and, drove him from his upper bunk. He crashed to the floor. When he tried to stand his feet slipped on the wet tiles. A dark shadow on the other side of the bed disappeared among the tiers of snoring men and double tall cots.

  Clemson staggered to his feet. His hands clutched his belly, they felt sticky and wet. In the harsh glare of the bathroom lights he saw the blood. He pulled off a clump of paper towels and pressed them against the wound. He tried to yell for help but instead of calling out he only made a gurgling sound before he coughed and foamy blood came from his mouth. He leaned against the wall for support, but slowly his legs failed him. He slid to the floor where a guard found him fifteen minutes later.

  Clemson awoke in the hospital. Bandages wrapped his waist where the doctor’s went inn to suture his liver and stitch up the muscles of the abdominal wall. The second thrust penetrated his right lung. It collapsed causing him to pass out. The doctor’s went in there too. Then they re-inflated the lung.

  Kurt moved but felt little pain. He tried to lift his hand to scratch an itch, but it came to a halt with a jerk, his wrist was cuffed the bed rails. The world was softly out of focus. He tried to think about why someone wanted to kill him, but he could not hold onto a chain of thought. He let himself slip away.

  *

  The sun woke Harry. His wristwatch read 5:40. Despite the heat of the previous day the morning air was cold. Birds called to each other. Out on the lake the water glinted like shiny coins in the early light.

  He slid out of his sleeping bag. When he stood he could see his boat floating safely on its anchor rode. It seemed better to sleep on shore. On board, Kurt or men like him might more easily find them. If someone had gone aboard during the night they would have encountered an unpleasant, if only momentary surprise. A hand grenade was wired to the companion way door. Force the door and whoever was there would be blown up.

  Harry pulled a sweatshirt over his head. He pushed his gun into the waist of his pants and padded off toward the campground’s bathroom. Barton's bag lie in a clump near some trees.

  When he returned he lit his small Svea camp stove and heated coffee water. About the time the aroma began to waft from the percolating pot, Barton came loping up, his shirt soaked with sweat despite the cool air.

  Harry poured two mugs of java,, they sat sipping at the picnic table. To the passerby they seemed two harmless men, friends on a campout.

  “I think we need to get a different boat.”

  Harry looked across the water. “You don’t like my boat?”

  “I think it’s a bit too obvious. Not too hard to fly the lake and locate your tub.”

  “It’s not a tub,” Harry said indignantly.

  “I’m from the ghetto they all be tubs. Where I grew up the only water ca
me out of a tap or the fire hydrant.”

  Harry sipped more coffee. “You’ve got a point. I have a friend who owns a different brand of houseboat. Well take mine back and borrow his.”

  Harry’s phone rang.

  “Talk,” was all he said. A moment later he snapped the phone shut.

  “Our boy was knifed last night. My guy found out about it when he came on duty.”

  “Is the son-of-a-bitch dead.”

  “No, at least not when he left the jail.”

  “Someone else doesn’t like our friend,” Barton said with a predatory smile. “We need to get to him before they do.”

  “What about the cops? They aren’t going to put him in St. Catherine's without a guard.”

  “We’ll just have to take him away from them.”

  A few minutes later the Hummer roared to life. Harry poured the last of the coffee into his cup. He climbed into the dinghy and rowed out toward his boat as Barton drove away. They could come back for their gear latter.

  It was a short run down to Cody’s Marina. The docks were empty except for a group of teenagers loading a ski boat.

  Barton was waiting at the slip, ready to take the lines, when Harry idled in. They made the boat fast, hooked up the shore power.

  “Let’s go to the Rebel Café for breakfast.”

  “They ain’t got boys in the back room wearing white sheets do they, Harry? It’s too early for a fight.”

  “Not that kind of rebel, Dirk. The place was started by a hippie, turned student radical, dropped out and finally became a short order cook. He makes good food.”

  They both ordered the pancake stack, large as a dinner plate and drenched in syrup. It was washed down with more coffee. Harry stepped into the kitchen. Barton heard him call out, “Hey Frankie can I borrow a set of your whites?” A couple minutes later Harry returned with a pair of white denim pants and a white cotton shirt.

  “Frankie is about your size. He likes to wear a the same uniform everyday. Maybe he’s still reacting to his hippie phase.”

  “Peace and love brother.”

  “Shut up and put these on.”

  Barton shrugged. When he came out of the bathroom he was all white, except for his skin that contrasted with the clothes like burnished ebony.

  “Now what?” he asked.

  “You just got a new job!”

  They drove to St. Catherine’s. Harry picked up a car blanket from the rear seat. “Come on in, we’re going to find our target.”

  The hospital lobby was empty, it was too early for white haired volunteers to be at the visitor’s desk. The metal grate for the gift shop was still closed. On their way toward the elevators Harry grabbed one of several unused wheelchairs marked ‘DISCHARGE’ in white stencil. They were used for when patients checked out of the hospital.

  The elevator doors opened. When they closed he sat down in the chair, spread the blanket on his lap, and let his head loll down.

  “Push me brother, you are now a hospital orderly.”

  Barton grinned. “Look like you belong, rule number one in the handbook.”

  They cruised the hallways. Harry acted the part of a patient that was not all there. Barton rolled him along, a bored look on his face and buds in his ears, as his head bounced to a non-existent beat. They worked their way down from the fifth floor. Nobody asked who they were. Nurses hurried past, doctors on early rounds kept their nose’s glued to files or their eyes on the screen of their cell phones.

  On the second floor, at the far end of the hall a sheriff’s deputy sat in a chair beside a door. Barton and Harry cruised past. The deputy glanced up, saw the whites and looked down. Barton brought a karate chop down on the mans clavical. He slumped in the chair.

  “Bring the Hummer around front,” Barton ordered.

  “No, there’s a side exit off the stairwell. I’ll meet you there.”

  Harry hopped up from the wheelchair walked briskly down the hallway. For effect he pulled out his cell phone, kept his head down and watched the screen. He made eye contact with no one. Instead of the elevator he used the stairwell, at the bottom the door opened out onto the street. He wedged a piece of cardboard into the jamb as the door closed so it could not latch, then went around the corner to retrieve their truck.

  In the hospital room Kurt was asleep. He was probably drugged. It took only half a minute to pick the handcuffs. Dirk hoisted his target into the wheelchair. Kurt stirred. Barton looked out the window. One floor below, the Hummer idled in a red zone, condensed vapor rising from the exhaust. He unlatched the window and left it open. Barton rolled Kurt out of the room.

  In the hall, the deputy was still out cold. Barton rolled the wheelchair down the hall to the exit, he passed the nursing station. They were either busy or out, he did not bother to look.

  Inside the stairwell he easily lifted Kurt onto his shoulder, the result of many hours lifting weights. As a mercenary he never knew how far, for how long, carrying who or what, he might need to do. The door at the bottom of the stairwell swung open. Harry’s head appeared. Seeing Barton he nodded, stepped back and held the door.

  Dirk dumped Kurt on the rear seat and snapped the handcuffs back on his wrists. The man stirred but never woke. Harry pulled away.

  A couple minutes later a nurse coming down the stairs at the end of her shift, found the wheelchair on the stairway landing. The chairs often ended up in odd places. Being the helpful sort of person, she wheeled it over to the elevators and rode down to the lobby. Once she parked it with the other lobby wheelchairs she never thought of it again.

  *

  The Sheriff heard about the patients escape within the hour. Someone cold cocked the guard. Other than a sore neck and bad headache he was unharmed. The man was at a loss to say who struck him. He remembered people in the hall but it might also have been the prisoner. After all the man was gone and so were the handcuffs.

  “Should we put out an APB?” Pat Egan asked.

  Gaines shrugged. He was tired. Someone wanted his prisoner dead or alive. If it was dead, the body would probably turn up, if it were alive he doubted the man would be back. “Sure,” he said to Egan, “but don’t spend a lot of time on it, I think we will be better off without him.”

  *

  Harry and Barton took Kurt to the houseboat. He was awake by the time they were ready to take him from the Hummer down to the small boat dock behind a vacant cabin. However the pillowcase over his head kept him from seeing. Together they walked him to the boat, each with a vice like grip on one elbow.

  Once they were aboard they put their prisoner in the forward cabin, where they tied his feet. Harry opened a small access panel to the chain locker and used a bike lock to chain Clemson’s stainless cuffs to the eye-bolt that held the bitter end of the anchor chain. Clemson cursed and struggled to no avail.

  Harry went to the First Aid kit in the galley. He pulled out four Vicodin. Back in the cabin he reached under the pillowcase and pinched off the man’s nose using one hand. When Kurt opened his mouth to breath, he popped the pills in and slapped his hand over the mouth. He let go of the nose. Kurt tossed and fought but after a few minutes the pills were either swallowed or dissolved in their prisoners mouth.

  “He should be out of it for several hours.” Harry said in the salon.

  “Why don’t you go check out the motel? I would still like to know who he is.”

  Harry started the dinghy motor and cast off. As he motored along the shore the morning air was warming. Ski boats zipped by and sailboats began to dot the lake.

  The town dock where he tied up was only three blocks from his office in the Edison Building. As Harry turned onto Boyden Street a cruiser pulled to the curb, the window rolled down.

  “Grim!”

  When he looked up he saw the sheriff. Age was catching up to the man, Harry thought. The sheriff looked weary.

  “Our John Doe disappeared last night. I thought you should know.”

  “I thought your jail would be harder to
get out of or do you mean a lawyer sprang him?”

  “Neither, persons unknown put a shiv into him. At the hospital he either escaped or somebody helped him. The nurse’s thought he was too out of it to do it on his own, but with these spooks you never know. They teach them a sorts of mind control.”

  “Thanks Sheriff, I’ll watch my back.”

  The car pulled away.

  Harry picked up his car where he left it parked in front of his office. Before he started it up he tried Paula’s number. She answered on the fourth ring. It was only the second time they had talked since he left her in Spokane. It was all off he thought. Their conversation was stilted.

  “Is something wrong, Babe?”

  “No. I don’t know.”

  “Has your ex done something? Should I come and get you?”

  “No, Harry. Don’t!”

  The words were sharp and came too quickly he thought. What should he say? Nothing came to mind.

  After a long pause he heard her say, “I’m fine, really.”

  Who is she was trying to convince? He pressed a random button on the phone to make it beep while he spoke.

  “Sorry, honey I have a call I gotta take. I’ll talk to you later.”

  Before she could say anything that might depress him more, he snapped the phone shut and started the car’s engine.

  At the Arrow Lodge Motel a vacant sign hung out front. Inside, the clerk who seemed a habituate smoker slid a registration card across the counter. Harry filled it out.

  “Is the unit on the end open? I like to have as few common walls as possible.”

  The smoker looked at the rack behind him.

  “It’s your lucky day,” he said and plucked down the key for #16.

  Harry pulled out a small wad of bills and peeled off three twenties.

  “I’m dead tired. Tell the maid not to disturb me.”

  The smoker laughed until coughing choked him. “Maid, that’s a good one”, he managed to say between hacks.

  Harry shut and locked the door. He pulled the blinds. Darkness filled the room until he found the light switch. For several minutes he leaned against the door surveying the room. There were a limited number of places to hide things in a motel room.