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fiction: serial fiction
faraway: chapter nine
Summers ducked into the tight corridor quickly, surprising Damu and Munoz, as they showed Joseph some of the better secrets the prison kept. Summers, his normally unflappable cool shaken by eyes wide with horror, reported his news.
"They're attacking us on the yard!" he exclaimed before anyone could ask. "Simpson has a buncha guys with guns and flashlights and sh*t! We're gettin' creamed down there!"
Damu looked to Munoz and flinched a little. "Okay," he began, his mind racing, "okay, we're gonna take some losses, but we can handle this. Get to the corridors around the yard, any that are away from Simpson, and get as many people as you can out of there. Tell them to hide in bunks, to stash away in cells, but to divide. If the guards have to come at us in smaller groups, we can surprise them. Go, go, we'll start something else here."
Summers ran back the way he came and Damu turned to Joseph. "Can you go with Munoz, take about twenty guys, get some guns and explosives and send them in through the Armory on a smash and burn? Real hard cases, people who have nothing to lose?"
Joseph nodded, saying, "There's ten like that back with Harata now, getting weapons ready. Why attack now?"
Damu replied through tightly gritted teeth, "It's the Carthage Gambit. The only way the Romans could beat Hannibal Barca was to attack his homeland while he was still in Italy. Made him come home, unprepared, and take his only loss of record. If we attack the guards where they live, they'll have less interest in their frontal attack. Plus it'll give me time to prep a secondary response. Oh, and tell Harata I need the distraction we discussed."
Joseph nodded before he and Munoz left, the opposite direction from Summers. Damu stood for a moment, gripped with doubt. "I should have seen this coming," he berated himself, "when those two morons took that RPG and made that potshot. Dammit!"
Shaking his head to clear it, he checked his pistol and started climbing to a very special section nearer to the top of the prison. It was rough going on the irregular notches meant to be a ladder, up through a claustrophobic and irregular ductway. Within minutes he'd negotiated the distance to find Quincy, a broad and angry man with a scar down his left cheek, moving barrels with Yang and Katsumoto, two of Harata's Yakuza partners.
"What's up, bruh?" Quincy said in his gravelly voice.
"Forget the original plan," Damu said, reaching for a dolly, "we need to get these things into the guard's vent system."
"All of it?" Quincy boggled, looking around at the hundreds of barrels.
"No, about twenty should do it. It'll offset their psychological advantage."
Yang, one of Harata's people, spoke up. "What advantage? What's going on?"
"That snipe at the warden is coming back to haunt us," Damu said evenly, looking away distractedly. "Simpson's down on the yard with troops. Come on, help me move this stuff, we don't have much time."
Quickly they began moving barrels over to the makeshift pulley system they set up as Yang began climbing to its apex.
• • •
The ugly crunch of bones under his boot made Simpson's manic grin all the wider, as he twisted his leg to further crush the fingers under his foot. He tracked his assault rifle, a vintage M-309 with a drum clip, to his right, tagging three blue uniformed prisoners making a run for it. Simpson stopped to look, and saw more and more prisoners were abandoning their mad charge, jumpsuited bodies stacking atop one another and making a natural barricade.
"They're going into the cell blocks!" Simpson hollered at his rear guard. "Second team, pursue! First team, I want this yard clean in ten minutes, nothing alive! Third team, stand firm."
As he was finishing his cry and glancing around for more targets, a burly tactical guard named Carnegie came over. "Sir, we have hostiles in the living areas!" Carnegie said, shocked. "Fourth team is taking heavy casualties."
Simpson opened his mouth to reply when a loud explosion shook the walls, and a flare of flame and hot air burst from the secured door between prison and staff section, its concussive force knocking four guards to the ground. Simpson glanced up at the shattered hole where Spaulding's office had been and cursed under his breath. He turned and yelled new orders.
"Change of plans, people!" Simpson yelled over the clamor. "Second team, continue pursuit, return to clean up the yard. First team, third team, back to the living areas! Come on, go! Go! Go! Go!"
Streams of guards, carefully watched by their compatriots as they fired bursts of shots at prisoners, coming and going, started to retreat. Simpson gritted his teeth, muttering, "this isn't enough enemy casualties ..." before beginning to back towards the door, firing wildly as he went.
• • •
Harata lay on his stomach inside an air duct overlooking the main corridor of the staff admin wing. His eyes were closed, his mind concentrating on breathing. His claustrophobia beat about his head and shoulders like a rubber mallet, but he kept focusing on sparrows and xylophone music, desperate to forget those horrible hours trapped in that mountain.
Eyes still closed, he screwed the makeshift silencer on the barrel of his rifle, his fingers nimble and sure. Even while his mind wrestled with fear, his body responded with the certainty of his training and moved fluidly. Finally, he rested the ridge of his right eye on the cool metallic surface of the scope, and opened his eye.
Looking through the scope, his mind already settling on targets, he began to calm down. There was something about the precision of a scope that always soothed his nerves, and he began to breathe evenly. Sliding up a bit, until the silencer was pressed against the vent, Harata smiled a little to himself as he saw Leonard, the guard major Damu had so much success impersonating. Leonard's knee filled the scope like a full moon in the sky. Harata inhaled, held, and tapped the trigger lightly.
In the yelling and smokiness of the corridor, the shot was a whispered secret. Leonard's knee exploded in a red mist of blood and muscle, and he fell back and down, screaming. Two more heads vaporized into crimson clouds before Leonard hit the ground, rolling around and screaming. The rifle's kick was gentler than it was on his thinner pre-prison frame, Harata noticed, and he was easily able to sweep back and forth, his fear completely gone now, taking down guard after guard. A chest erupted with a gusher of blood, falling through a doorway leading to the stairs. A neck turned into a stream of plasma. Another head, an arm, several backs filled with holes. Harata just thought of the men he was killing as body parts, not whole people, and noticed the whisper of the gunfire becoming a cough, then a bark, meaning his homemade silencer was starting to give out. He closed his eyes again and unscrewed the silencer, switching it for the second one he'd prepared. The screaming and chaos in the hall actually helped soothe his nerves as he remembered hard metal so close to each shoulder. He opened his eyes and carefully placed a grenade near the vent, looping the pin over a loose shard of the vent where he'd been shooting. Smiling to himself, he closed his eyes, grabbed his things, and started to snake through the vents, headed for the opposite side of the hallway.
• • •
Spaulding was barking orders at the top of his lungs as more and more people were carried in to the overloaded staff infirmary. Grayson was doing his best to tend to some of the more serious cases, just as he'd saved lives on that botched mission in Uganda. Spaulding oversaw the deployment of his last guard battalion, stemming the tide from marauding prisoners armed just as well as they are.
Grayson left a nurse to finish patching up a chest wound and came over to Spaulding. "This is not going well for us, Ken!"
"This is going slowly," Spaulding replied grimly, "but we're not in any real trouble. Our casualties are irritating but not fatal. Neither side is losing enough to make this worth it. Simpson's pulling back his advance force and we'll have the staff area secured again in thirty minutes or so."
"I'm going to suggest something you are not going to like ..." Grayson said grimly.
Spaulding spun and looked at him with revulsion. "I am not going to negotiate with these prisoners, Stuart! I negotiated with the Iraqis, I even negotiated with those nihilist bastards in Bonn, but I am not negotiating with these ... reprobates!"
Just then another huge explosion shook the walls, and Spaulding spun back the other way. Hathaway was listening to one of the few working headsets and nodded grimly. He looked up at Spaulding from across the room with a grim, tired wariness. Spaulding walked over carefully and leaned over to hear the news.
"What is it, Hathaway?"
"Sir ..." Hathaway said hoarsely. "Commander Simpson's troops drew back and cut off the prisoner hostiles, who were holed up in the residential section. Before anybody could evacuate ... the prisoners detonated some explosives. Destroyed half the residential section and ... there are a lot of fatalities. Mostly families."
Spaulding stood up and rubbed the bridge of his nose tiredly. "Simpson's men?"
"Minimal casualties in the first and third battalions," Hathaway read from his notes. "The second battalion is still in the prison area, exercising their option."
Spaulding said nothing for a moment. "Call them back."
"Sir?"
"Sound a full retreat. This is pointless, and antagonizing them. Detente is our only hope. Call them all back, secure every inch of the territory we have. They sent in commandoes, not occupying forces."
Spaulding walked away as he heard Hathaway send the signal. Grayson read the result on his face before Spaulding could open his mouth.
"The residences?" Grayson asked sickly.
Spaulding nodded.
"You called back the troops?"
Spaulding wryly returned, "How'd you know?"
"Because they asked me lots of questions about you before I sent you out here," Grayson said tiredly. "I had to have answers. You're not motivated by revenge. Reining in Simpson won't be as easy."
"We won't have to," Spaulding said, pulling himself up to his full height in an attempt at looking commanding. "A detente is my goal here. That, and finding out how they're getting in."
Richards walked up just then, and Spaulding looked at him like a long, lost friend. Spaulding tried to remember the last time he saw Richards. Sending for Simpson, that night so long ago? The Leonards fiasco? It bothered Spaulding that he couldn't remember. Richards looked like hell, his blond hair smudged and matted from smoke and sweat.
"Sir, I think we found how they're getting to us," Richards offered sadly. "I'd better show you."
Spaulding raised an eyebrow and agreed. He walked out into the smoky corridor, the bodies of his staff littering the floors, to the point he had to walk over some. Spaulding stopped long enough to order a young female guard to get back to Secretary Grayson and have every body checked and identified before they abandoned it. Richards, favoring his left leg a little, led Spaulding down the hallway and down the steps to a corridor near what used to be the pantry. Spaulding was amazed when get got there to see one of the riveted wall plates that gave Faraway its battleship-like charm swung open on a crude and irregular hinge. He examined the plate, which was supposed to be laid over two other plates of similar construction, and sighed loudly.
"How many of these?" Spaulding asked tiredly.
"Well, sir," Richards said, "I was in the fire team that was suppressing the enemy position near here, when we noticed them starting to disappear instead of retreat into our backup position around the corner there. We clipped the last one in the head, he's lying over there, and he was hanging out of this. We left it open, because we were afraid we wouldn't be able to get it open again."
Spaulding, amazed, asked, "Did anyone follow them in?"
"Jennings and Thompkins went in," Richards said with a slight cough, "and we got some of Thompkins out. Seems there's booby traps in there or something. We'd use sonar scanners if we had power for 'em, but as it is, there could be anything in there."
Spaulding chuckled a little. "Ever heard of a place called Vietnam, Richards?"
Richards nodded slowly, his eyes angling upwards as he searched his brain for the information. "A little, sir. My grandfather talked about it when I was younger."
"Welcome back to Vietnam, Mister Richards," Spaulding said with a grunt. "Things are insanely bad. I need to get back to talk to Simpson."
"Instructions, sir?"
Spaulding considered that. "Leave four guards here," he said, stroking his chin. "You're not one of them. Pull back to the cafeteria. That's where we're all relocating to, for safety's sake. The four guards here are quite possibly dead men, so pick whoever you can afford to lose."
Without another word, Spaulding walked back the way he came, making his way to the infirmary. When he walked in, a tricky grin slanting his wrinkled face, Grayson cringed.
"The last time you smiled like that, those Croatians were on their way," Grayson said, setting down an old fashioned legal pad.
"It's pretty much that bad, Stuart," Spaulding chuckled. "We have to relocate all the wounded, everything. Everything goes to the cafeteria, we have to circle the wagons."
Grayson looked quizzically at Spaulding. Spaulding smiled and said, "Remember when we figured we'd save millions by using prison laborers instead of contractors?"
"Uh huh ..."
"Well, it's like that Microsoft legacy code problem we had," Spaulding sighed. "Backdoors."
Grayson blanched, his jaw dropping and his mouth forming a perfect oval. "Dear god ... that means ..."
"... that they probably used their pet hacker to jimmy his way into the electrics as well, which means some really nasty surprises can still be waiting for us. I've started the guards barricading the cafeteria and its environs, securing those air ducts around them and moving all sensitive personnel there. Then we stack the hallways thick with as many men as we can in every direction. At this point, it's the best we can do."
"We ... we can negiotiate ..." Grayson began.
"With who? Where's their headquarters? How do we contact them? This is worse than Sumatra, at least we had radio contact then. We hunker down and pray, that's our option."
Shaking his head and laughing, Spaulding left Grayson to move things along.
• • •
Damu was wrapping the ankle of one of Harata's shooters, who'd sprained it coming out of a vent awkwardly, when Jonesy came to tell him.
"It's just like you said," Jonesy said breathily. He'd probably run all the way to men's solitary, one of the most insulated places in the prison, and the temporary HQ for Damu's loose alliance.
"Auditorium or cafeteria?" Damu asked, not even looking up from his first aid.
"Uh ... cafeteria," Harata responded, amazed at how sure Damu was. "They've started pulling back, and the hallways along the way are thick with guards."
"Cafeteria ..." Damu said absently, finishing the binding as he thought aloud. "They'll be setting mines behind the lunch tables then. Any sign of the Knights?"
Jonesy pondered for a second. "Oh, yeah. Seems the White Knights were mostly in a secured part of the residential section, and the first guys who went in with the C-7 got most of them. I think Warren or somebody saw one or two of 'em crawling out of there, but they were in bad shape."
Finished with the leg, Damu stood and said, "We're gonna have to dig through there for Thor, I think. If the stuff you hacked about that Union is right, we may have to worry about his brother. Right. Well, we can set up guard posts at all the spots Harata noticed and fall back for some grub. We've been at this all day, pretty much."
"So, do what?" Jonesy asked. He was excited and pleased, after a few days with Lira and relatively cushy times, serving as Damu's personal courier.
"Okay. Run to Tony, tell him to secure the spots he peeped," Damu said, ticking things off on his fingers as he went, as a way to remember. "Then run to Khari and tell him we're about ready for that food he's been getting ready down in the lower levels. Last thing, holler at your girl Lira and tell her we need that laundry stuff ready to go the way I asked for. Then get downstairs and eat something."
Worried, Jonesy asked, "What about you?"
"I'm so close I can taste it," Damu said with a sudden, beaming grin. "I gotta go make sure everything's tight. Just walk the perimeter, you know."
Jonesy smiled and nodded, heading off towards Harata's position at the front. Damu smiled widely and nodded to himself, looking around at people helping the wounded, determined faces loading weapons. "Bruised, battered and scarred, but hard," indeed, Dad, Damu thought to himself, remembering a lyric from one of his father's favorite songs. He walked from solitary out towards the yard, which was still a mess.
There were four ways from the guard's upper floors to the main prison level, two short staircases at the north and south sides, and two drop chutes for rapid deployment on east and west. Bonfires offered wan illumination from below the drop chutes, which probably kept them sealed tightly, and the bodies of the dead were being moved into position to block one of the staircase doorways. Damu waved as he walked past, men of different colors respectfully carrying their fallen comrades into this final duty.
Damu kept his own counsel, considering this and analyzing that. He walked up the only open staircase towards the section of guard quarters the prisoners -- his men, he thought for the first time -- secured. It was approximately 300 yards from that position to the guard's front line, and another 50 from there to the cafeteria, along a few turns and twists of hallway. The smoke was starting to settle down and make its way upwards, towards the barely functioning air filters at the top of the prison. Damu vaguely wondered to himself if they'd thought to open the vents atop, or decided to leave the prison as a pressure cooker. Damu then assumed they'd want access to the copters, so the smoke would find daylight soon enough, even if he might take longer to do so.
Damu approached a black-jumpsuited man with cornrows, impossibly smoking a cigarette as he stood watch. "That thing's gonna kill you, man," Damu mentioned conversationally.
The man looked at Damu, then at the cigarette, and back to Damu. Unexpectedly, gales of laughter burst from his grim face, instantly transformed into a wide smile better suited to summer barbecues than this place. "After the day I had," he chuckled, "this thing can have me if it's that f**kin' bad."
"What's your name, brother?" Damu asked.
"Petey Andrews, man," the man said, offering a hand. "I shot that three pointer over you 'bout nine months ago, to win that game."
"That was you?" Damu laughed, shaking the offered palm. "Damn, bruh, you ain't lost no weight on less food, you must have a glandular condition or somethin'!" Damu joked.
Andrews smiled a little and glanced back down the hallway, careful and watchful. "I got three young Gs with me, along the hall, ready to holler if sh*t go down."
"You got it, man, thank you for doing all this," Damu said sincerely. "You're helpin' us all, you know that, right?"
Andrews looked down at his shoes and sucked his teeth. "If I can live through this, there's a chance I might see my Mary again one day. That's worth fighting for."
Damu nodded. "Wife?"
"Shoulda been," Andrews said wistfully, glancing back down the hall for signs of trouble. "We was together twelve years before I got sent here."
Damu nodded before asking, "Brother, when was the last time you heard anything from that direction?"
Andrews inclined his head towards the guards. "That way? Maybe an hour, maybe a little more. I ain't got no watch, and the clocks is all off, so I'm guessin.'"
Damu nodded. "Thanks, man. I'ma make sure they bring you guys up some food, all right? Somebody'll take over for you in about two hours, all right?"
Andrews nodded, opened his mouth and closed it again, whatever thought he had choosing to stay in his head. He hitched up the squad assault rifle slung over his shoulder and nodded again.
Damu smiled and turned back, sure that things were well at hand.
• • •
Four guards -- Idelson, Martin, Hinton and Faireborn -- stood patiently by the open gap in the wall. They were somewhat relaxed, realizing that an entire army of guards stood between them and, they were told, the only door up from where the prisoners were. Still, each of them glanced at the makeshift hatch and wondered how many more secret entrances there were.
Idelson was leaned against the hatchway, fidgeting with the mode selector on his rifle.
"Funny thing is," Hinton smiled, "This is probably the safest duty we coulda pulled!" Hinton was a pudgy guard, his flak jacket unzipped and somehow comical on his larger frame.
"How the f**k do you figure that?" Faireborn asked incredulously. Faireborn's icy blue eyes stared angrily at Hinton.
"They got this booby trapped, right?" Hinton asked. "Means they'd have to un-booby trap it to come through. Which we can hear. So they won't do it! So they'd use other ways to get in. So we're probably pretty safe!"
Idelson looked up from his rifle and scratched his nose, soot from his glove brushing on his cheek. "He's kind of got a point there."
Martin shrugged and turned to look down an empty corridor towards the ruins of the residential section. The pale young man held the walkie talkie like it was his only friend.
"Hinton," Faireborn said through thin, tense lips, "you're a moron."
Hinton smiled back, pleased with himself. It almost seemed natural when a voice from the hole in the wall said, "No, he's got a point, too much work to come through this way."
All four guards jumped and aimed their rifles at the gap, though Hinton almost dropped his. The voice continued, "I'm a ways up here, and there's stilll some tricky stuff, so just stay where you are, and I'm gonna get done talkin' to y'all. Now, I'm 'bout to drop a sheet with some words written on it, since we couldn't find no paper, so nobody panic and shoot it up. Okay? Here goes ..."
A lump of sheet fells out and they all tracked it with their guns. The voice went on, "Now, I'm done with my part, I gotta get back. I didn't undo any of this, so it's still not real smart for y'all to try to follow me. Aight then, holler at ya later."
They all stood there for a moment, guns trained on the still lump of sheet.
"Hinton," Faireborn hissed. "Open up the sheet."
"F**k no," Hinton whispered back.
"Hinton!" Faireborn growled, "open that goddamned sheet or I'm gonna shoot you myself!"
Hinton looked to the other guards for support, but they stood, rifles still aimed at the open wall plating, wordless. Hinton muttered a curse and let his rifle fall on its shoulder strap, slowly kneeling down to the lump of bedding. He gingerly handled the sheet, slowly unfolding it, terrfifed something horrible would leap out and devour him. He got it open and found nothing more than the words that the voice promised, smudged on with shoe polish.
Faireborn said, "We gotta get this to the warden. Martin, call it in."
Martin nodded, slowly raising the walkie talkie to his chin and uttering three words, "Advance, courier, over," before switching back to the lower power listen-only mode. Moments later Richards walked up, amazed to see the guards all alive, guns still aimed at the secret doorway, save Hinton.
"Uh, what's up, guys?" Richards asked uneasily.
Hinton balled up the sheet and handed it over. "One of the prisoners dropped this through there," Hinton said nervously, indicating their well-guarded hole in the wall.
Richards took the scene in and tried not to find it comical, but couldn't hide a smirk. "It came from there?"
Faireborn spat out, "A prisoner's voice came down, saying he had a message on a sheet, and that he was gonna drop it through the booby traps. That's what came through."
Richards examined the pile of bedwear and nodded. "I'll take this to the warden."
"Find out when we're being relieved!" Idelson grunted, suddenly not so secure at all.
Richards nodded noncommittally, walking back the way he came, leaving the three guards rigidly training their weapons on the wall, and Hinton leaning nervously against the opposite side.
• • •
It had taken Simpson longer than expected to calm down after being called back from battle. Spaulding sat alone, in the raised center section of the cafeteria, now set up as the central command post. Dim glowtorches provided what little light there was, and Spaulding kept his pistol gripped in his right hand, awaiting his subordinate.
Simpson finally walked in, dressed in his dress uniform again, and carrying his rifle and a duffel bag slung over each shoulder. Spaulding suppressed a laugh, imagining some little boy set to run away, and regarded the younger man, as Simpson set the rifle atop the bag and stood at ease.
"Reporting as requested, sir," Simpson said quietly, his eyes ablaze with some hidden turmoil.
"You have, no doubt, been briefed on the prisoner's little surprise?" Spaulding began conversationally.
"Yessir," Simpson returned tersely.
"You realize that, for the safety of the staff, I had to recall you and your men?" Spaulding continued.
"Yessir." Again, Simpson stared straight ahead into nothingness.
Spaulding quietly clicked the safety into the "off" position on his weapon and forged ahead. "Your plan was sound, and would have worked had we received all the intel."
Simpson said nothing.
Shaking his head tiredly, Spaulding rose to stand face to face with Simpson. "We have, to my satisfaction, secured this area and its environs to the best of our ability. We have made fairly certain there are no surprise doors nearby, and we have secured the surviving civilian and guard populace in this area. What I have to ask you next is going to be very difficult ..."
Just then, a frantic knocking at the staircase bounded up to Simpson and Spaulding. Simpson remained as still as a portrait, and Spaulding looked around him to see Richards carrying a sheet towards him.
"I'm sorry to interrupt, sirs," Richards began, "but the advance position at the secret passage has interacted with a prisoner agent who delivered this. I thought you should see it."
Spaulding walked around Simpson, sparing a glance at the mad guard, before taking the sheet from Richards' hand. Together they spread it out over a table until it was readable.
"Hm," Spaulding said, looking over it. "'Dear Ken,' that has to be Damu. 'Dear Ken, ready to negotiate now. Don't want to hurt anyone else. Your position ends short of Room S-1726, mine begins just after S-1748. Let's meet, you and I, in the middle, 10 minutes after the howl.' After the howl? What can that mean ..."
Just then, a loud howling, the sound of a hundred men baying like mad wolves, echoed through the halls, from up the sealed drop-chutes and echoing through the hallways until its quieter ricochets could even be heard by Spaulding.
"That must be it," Spaulding commented dryly. "Richards, go get me a pair of tactical guards and a vest, and have it waiting for me near room S-1720. I'll be there momentarily."
Richards walked out and Spaulding returned to his position in front of Simpson, who'd remained motionless through that entire interlude.
"Simpson?" Spaulding asked.
"Yessir," Simpson replied calmly, as if he were acknowledging how lovely the weather had been lately.
"Simpson ..." Spaulding started slowly, "you want to kill the prisoners. You want revenge. You particularly want Damu dead. I understand. I do too. We are still months and months away from anything close to a rescue, and outnumbered at least six to one, if not double that. I need you to do nothing, to stay here, to be still, and await orders. I promise you I will yet unleash you, and if you want it, you can still be the face I put on this when we're safe."
Simpson mulled that over for a moment and nodded. He reached down, grabbed his bag and weapon, and walked calmly over to one side of the room. He sat his gear down next to a chair, leaned against the wall, and sat down, bolt upright, staring passionately ahead into nowhere.
Spaulding decided that was better than shooting him now, so he sighed and walked out.
By the time Spaulding got to S-1720, Richards was waiting with two tactical guards Spaulding recognized as Kirzner and Patrick, holding a flak vest. Spaulding reached for the vest and slid it over his smudged and damaged jacket, snapping it securely shut. He turned to Kirzner and Patrick and said, "You are only to fire or respond in a hostile fashion towards the prisoners we are meeting if I say the word 'absolutely' twice in a row, or if you are certain you've been fired on. Let's go over that. If I say, 'Why, yes, absolutely, absolutely,' you start shooting. Don't anticipate it, don't guess, don't shoot if I say it once. Don't shoot if someone reaches for something, don't shoot if they act funny. I'd hate to have to test your listening skills under these circumstances, or have you skinned alive and eaten if you mess this up. Got it?"
Both guards nodded nervously. Spaulding turned to Richards and was about to say something when Grayson jogged up, huffing and pufffing.
"What in the blue hell do you think you're doing, Ken?" Grayson gasped, tired from the exertion.
Spaulding spared a tired smirk for Grayson and replied, "I am doing as you suggested, negotiating."
"Sidebar for a moment?" Grayson asked, flustered.
Grayson and Spaulding took a couple of steps away from the tactical guards and Grayson wondered, "Since you can't be serious, are you suicidal?"
"This is no more dangerous than that meet we held in Budapest with the Basque nationalists," Spaulding said calmly, checking his vest. "I was angry before, saying I wouldn't negotiate. Besides, I don't want them to realize how easy it would be to overrun us with sheer numbers, because they might decide it's worth the sacrifice. You've read about the Boer War."
Grayson shuddered visibly at the concept of bodies stacked, one atop another, with wave after wave continuing to come. "I'm trying to understand what you have to negotiate with," Grayson said warily.
"I have the same thing Thornton was willing to accept," Spaulding smiled. "An open door, and a way to turn off the defenses."
"Hm, they will accept voice and key commands outside the prison ..." Grayson thought, biting his lip. "All right well ... good luck soldier." Grayson managed a snappy salute, and Spaulding returned a slow one before returning to his escorts.
Spaulding hummed tunelessly as he walked with the guards, slightly behind them, towards room S-1726. He smiled, remembering it was a filing room where personal effects were sometimes stored, and a large family portrait he'd never identified rested in a corner, one he loved to look at whenever he happened to be in there, rummaging around for something. Within moments they'd reached the appointed place, flashlights illuminating the hallway, and silence surrounded them.
Scant seconds later, another set of flashlight beams started towards them, stopping about thirty feet away. Damu's voice called out, "That'd better be you, Ken, or bad things are gonna happen."
Spaulding glanced over the shoulders of the tactical units, appalled. Three prisoners, dressed in bloody, appropriated guard tactical wear, stood in front, their flashlights propped under their weapons just as Spaulding's guards were doing. Spaulding could vaguely make out Damu's head behind the line, along with a rifle barrel aimed with great precision, which implied Harata.
"I'm here," Spaulding replied calmly.
"I told you I'd find a way to have another chat, Ken," Damu said glibly. "So, let's talk. Here's what I can offer you -- an end to the assaults on guards and staff, and a complete cessation of hostilities. What are you willing to put on the table?"
"That's your opening offer?" Spaulding asked, incredulous. "I thought you were here to negotiate."
"Playing it that way, are we?" Damu replied cooly. "Make a counter offer, Spaulding."
Silently acknowledging the change in tone and method of address, Spaulding countered, "You surrender a set quantity of food and medical supplies. I open the doors and turn off the defenses, letting you and yours walk away to whatever fates await you."
"That's all bad, Ken," Damu said thoughtfully. "We get half way out there, you turn stuff back on ... no, a little too easy for you. Besides, we're not going anywhere. Here's my counter offer. We'll turn over 25% of the food and let you open the doors, leaving Faraway and us crazy bastards behind. I'd have to assume you can turn the defenses back on from the perimeter, to keep us locked up. As much as I love these chances to talk, I really just want you out of my life."
Spaulding concentrated for a moment, considering this. His eyebrows shot skywards as he realized they wanted exactly what The Union and Grayson wanted: an unbreachable fortress for ... what? Could they somehow be in contact with the hostiles that destroyed the Union advance in Illinois? Spaulding weighed the lives of his staff versus the end of the United States as a concept, and grimly set himself to save the country at all costs.
"I don't believe leaving is an option for me," Spaulding said slowly, "because the captain and his ship, et cetera, et cetera. I'm sure you understand."
Damu was quiet a moment, and Spaulding wasn't sure if he heard soft conversation or merely the whisper of tension and kevlar. "All right," Damu's voice came with finality, "I guess we're done here."
Spaulding blanched, surprised at this turn of events. "Done?" he asked quizzically.
"Yes, done," Damu responded conversationally. "I told you already, you're locked up in here with me. I was trying to give you a chance to get out of this alive and save the lives of all those people, even if you can't save face. There are literally thousands of people downstairs, ready to flood in here and kill everybody they find. Armed people. Angry people. People who hate you personally, and would line up a hundred long to corncob your geriatric asshole. As of now, I've talked them into not turning this into any more of an abbatoir than it already is. They might stop listening if you stick around."
Spaulding was running out of cards, and his choices didn't look pretty. He decided to bluff. "I appreciate your concern for the welfare of my staff," Spaulding began dryly, "but I assure you, our safety is not a concern. Even if you began your onslaught of flesh, within a matter of days we would be saved by the forces that are on their way. Surely your ragtag bunch couldn't overrun us that soon."
A throaty chuckle wafted through the hallway, Damu obviously amused. "I do so love these talks we have, Ken." Damu said, still laughing some. "Your kind has been relying on the ignorance of your opposition far too long. I know the Union got pasted outside Joliet. I know they won't be here for a long time. I have a very strong suspicion about who did it, but that's a discussion for another day. I don't want to let any of those people down there rush to their deaths, not a single one. The easiest way for that to happen is if you're not here, because we'll be fine here, no matter what. We've got food, we've got numbers. On the other hand, Ken, you are running out of time, no matter how you slice it."
Spaulding thought for a moment. He'd predicated everything on the most basic desires of every prisoner: escape, freedom, getting away from the locale of captivity. If Damu had indeed inspired them to believe they could live like kings here, there was no way to spread a counter message that he was wrong, no realistic means to convince them otherwise ... Stuck, Spaulding was forced to put on a brave face and think this through.
"If you only knew how mistaken you are," Spaulding managed in a condescending tone. "Very well, back to your subhuman conditions, your squalor and filth. Your friends down there would be well advised to mind their manners and stay there. For their own good. Come, men, we're done here."
Spaulding started a brisk walk away from Damu and his men, with the two tactical guards backing slowly away as he went. The armed insurrectionists watched them quietly, never lowering their weapons or flinching, until the tactical guards rounded a corner and disappeared from sight.
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