The John Milton Series Boxset 4 Read online

  MILTON THUDDED against the wall and then crashed down against the floor.

  Tiny had grabbed him beneath the arms and flung him across the cell. He had managed to twist in mid-air so that he might take the jolt against his back rather than crash into it headlong, but now he was winded. The back of his head had bounced off the stone and, when he looked up, he had to blink away the darkness that was leeching around the edges of his vision.

  The big Filipino flexed his shoulders, his muscles bulging.

  Milton scrabbled to his feet.

  Tiny lunged for him.

  Milton was able to duck beneath his grasping hands, crouching low enough so that he could swivel and slide through the narrow gap the big man had left between himself and the wall.

  He stumbled back until he was up against the bars once again.

  He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with as much air as he could.

  He felt a sudden prod against his back. One of the guards had taken out his billy club and was jabbing him with it.

  Milton knew it was hopeless. He was just buying time, but he wouldn’t be able to do that forever.

  ZIGGY’S FINGERS flashed across the keys.

  He had downloaded the exploit to the computer. Now he needed to push it into the jail’s wider network. The security was as lax as he had hoped it would be. The network was flat, with no obvious firewalls or air gaps. He could see that he would have control of everything.

  “Where is she?” Hicks said.

  Ziggy ignored him.

  “This shouldn’t have taken so long.”

  The upload bar seemed to hang, the last portion stubbornly refusing to fill up.

  “Ziggy—come on.”

  “The network is slow.”

  “Make it go faster.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  The computer bleeped its satisfaction.

  Ziggy looked down: the download bar was solid blue. “I’m in. Stand by.”

  He knew that he would have to move fast. He typed commands, his fingers a blur.

  He hit return.

  “Here we go,” he said.

  Nothing.

  He looked down at the laptop.

  “Well?” Hicks said.

  The cursor blinked at him.

  “I don’t—”

  He heard the sound of sirens.

  “Is that you?”

  “I told the system that there’s a fire,” Ziggy said. “The doors are programmed to open if that happens.”

  “The cell doors?”

  “All the doors.”

  61

  A LOUD siren blared out.

  Tiny stopped.

  The lights faded out.

  There came a series of clicks and thunks as the locks on all of the doors along the corridor were released.

  The lights flicked back on again.

  The doors juddered and rattled, all of them sliding back.

  One of the guards outside the cell cursed.

  Milton spun around.

  Two of the guards were close. He leapt at the nearest one. The man had his baton in his hand, holding it loosely with his fingers outside the leather strap. Milton lowered his shoulder and tackled him backwards, all the way across the walkway to the metal balustrade that guarded against the drop to the floor below. The guard was lighter than Milton and he was at a disadvantage. Milton reached for the baton, his left hand closing around the wooden shaft. The balustrade served as a fulcrum, the guard’s body arching over it before he overbalanced, the weight of his torso dragging him over the side. He slipped over the edge, crashing down against the concrete floor of the concourse below.

  One down.

  Milton spun around. The guard to his right had managed to take his Taser out of its holster. He was raising his arm to aim it as Milton backhanded him with the baton. The end of the shaft struck him on the side of the head. It was a stunning blow, and the guard dropped to his knees.

  Two down.

  The guard dropped the Taser.

  Milton dropped to one knee and took it.

  He sensed movement from the cell. He swivelled his hips, aimed blindly and fired.

  Tiny was too big to miss. The prongs deployed, one striking the big man in the fat of his belly and the other in his chest. The Taser discharged, fifty thousand volts unloading along the cable for a full five seconds. Tiny started to reach for the darts, but he was overwhelmed by the sudden and uncontrollable contraction of his muscles. His spine straightened before he toppled back like a felled tree, his legs and arms twitching spastically.

  Three down.

  Milton swivelled back. He pushed back up to a standing position and brought the Taser around in a forehand uppercut that cracked into the chin of one of the three remaining guards.

  The man went down, unconscious before his head bounced off the metal walkway.

  Orange-shirted inmates started to emerge from the cells.

  Milton ejected the spent cartridge from the Taser.

  The two guards who were still standing knew that they were in trouble.

  One of them had managed to fumble his baton out of its retaining strap. He swung it at Milton’s head, but the wild swipe was simple enough to duck beneath. Milton swept the man’s legs and, as he landed against the walkway with a heavy thud, he pressed the Taser into the man’s chest and pulled the trigger to stun him.

  More inmates appeared.

  The last guard started to panic.

  He turned away from Milton, but froze. The way ahead was blocked by a clutch of prisoners.

  The man was caught between them and Milton.

  There came an angry shout.

  Milton looked up.

  He saw the elevated booth above them on the other side of the building. It was manned by a guard whose job it was to open the cell doors remotely. The booth was encased in glass, like a bubble, with the glass reinforced by security bars. It offered excellent visibility all along the walkway. The guard had opened the window and was pointing a 12-gauge shotgun through the bars and down at them.

  Milton flung himself into the cell.

  The shotgun boomed.

  Tiny pellets chimed as they rang off the metal. It was birdshot, the same ammunition that sport shooters used to blow up clay pigeons and hunters used to kill birds and rabbits.

  The noise in the walkway changed from jubilation to anger.

  Tiny was still on the floor. The contractions had eased, and his fingers were crawling across his stomach like bloated spiders as he felt for the two darts. Milton looked down at him. Tiny found the darts and plucked them out. He pushed himself into a sitting position.

  Milton thought of the beatings that Tiny had meted out. He didn’t care so much about himself. He thought about the other men whom de Lacey must have thrown to his house thug.

  He thought about Isko.

  Milton slipped behind the big man and looped his cuffed hands over his neck. He clasped both hands together and then pulled until the chain that connected the cuffs was tight against Tiny’s throat.

  The big man knew that he was in trouble.

  He started to struggle, but Milton had the advantage now. He pulled back as hard as he could.

  Tiny was strong. He jerked forward. He managed to get his right foot on the ground and pushed up, hoisting Milton with him.

  Milton’s toes brushed the floor of the cell as Tiny reversed, driving Milton back into the wall.

  The impact was powerful, driving the air from his lungs, but he was tenacious. He held on.

  Tiny tried again.

  Milton tightened his grip and held on.

  He looped his legs around the big man’s waist and leaned back, pulling with everything he had.

  The choke was depressing the carotid artery, starving the brain of oxygen. Most people would have lost consciousness within ten seconds, but Milton knew that the thick muscle in Tiny’s neck would buy him a little extra time.

  Didn’t matter.

  Milton yanked aga
in, his biceps bulging, and, finally, Tiny overbalanced.

  They both hit the ground. Milton gasped from the impact, pinned beneath Tiny’s weight, but he maintained the hold.

  He locked his legs tighter.

  He pulled back harder still.

  Four seconds.

  Eight seconds.

  Tiny’s body went limp.

  Milton pulled.

  Fifteen seconds.

  He leaned forward, raised his arms and removed the chain from Tiny’s neck. He slid out from beneath the big man’s body.

  There was no time to check, but it wouldn’t have been necessary.

  He was dead.

  62

  “GET OFF ME.”

  Mendoza tugged her deeper into the building.

  “You want to tell me how you knew I was here?” she said.

  “Shut up, Josie.”

  “I’m serious. How did you know? I didn’t tell anyone.”

  “I got a phone call about an officer nosing around in business that didn’t concern her. I tried to tell you.”

  “How deep are you into all this?”

  “All this?”

  “The conspiracy against Milton.”

  “Who?”

  “Smith,” she corrected herself. “Who’s paying you?”

  He ignored her. “I warned you to let it go, but you didn’t listen. You kept pressing and pressing and pressing and now look.”

  “Oh shit,” Josie said, as she made a connection. “Santos said he was going to call the station. Did he call you?”

  Mendoza dragged her onward. He yanked her to the left, through an open doorway and then down a flight of stairs.

  Josie tried to free herself, but he was too strong. “He called you, didn’t he? He left me a message and said that he would. What did he tell you? He told me they had a backup of the security video and that I needed to see it. Were you on the video?”

  “No,” Mendoza said. They reached the bottom of the stairs. They were in the basement. There was no one else there with them.

  “But you went there, didn’t you? You saw the tape. Did you kill them because of it?”

  He stopped short and wheeled around to face her.

  “Admit it, Bruno.”

  His lip curled into a snarl. “I didn’t want to do this, but you haven’t given me a choice.”

  “You didn’t want to do…”

  The sentence trailed off.

  His hand twitched in the direction of his holstered gun.

  Josie went for it, but he blocked her. He brought up his elbow and struck her in the face.

  She fell away from him.

  His hand slid into his jacket.

  And then they heard the siren.

  Mendoza was distracted for a moment, and Josie took her chance.

  She swung her elbow up into his face. The bony point caught him on the side of the temple. He was taller than she was, and it was difficult to put any power into the blow, but it caught him by surprise. He tripped and fell to the floor. Josie followed with a kick, driving the point of her boot between his open legs and into his crotch.

  Mendoza yelped in pain.

  Something fell out of his jacket pocket onto the floor.

  His cellphone.

  She scooped it up.

  “Josie!”

  She kicked him again, turned away and ran back up the stairs.

  THE NOISE grew louder.

  Milton edged to the open doorway and glanced out.

  The walkway swarmed with inmates. They were spilling out of the cells.

  He looked up. He could see through the metal slats of the walkway above him that the doors had been opened on that floor, too. More men were coming out, their curiosity quickly changing into something more urgent and desperate.

  The prison was full of dangerous men. Under normal conditions, it exchanged the loss of liberty for order and security. It was a menacing place, but, if you played by the rules, it was possible to serve out a sentence and leave in one piece.

  This was different.

  It was chaos now, and, for as long as chaos suppressed order, the prison was almost unimaginably perilous.

  Without order, grudges could be settled.

  Vendettas followed.

  Blood spilled.

  Milton didn’t care for the quarrels of his fellow inmates, but he needed to get around them so that he could start to make his way out of the building. One of the unconscious guards was just outside the open door. He reached and grabbed the man’s ankle, yanking him inside. He frisked him quickly. He had a bunch of keys attached to his belt, and Milton flipped through them until he found the one that would open his cuffs. He bent his right wrist back so that he could work the key into the lock, twisted it, and popped the mechanism. The cuffs sprang open and Milton shook them off.

  One orange-shirted prisoner ran by the open door and tackled another to the ground. The first man pinned the second to the metal and pounded at his head and face, a flurry of lefts and rights that splashed blood and saliva and mucus over the metal surface. The man kept punching, even as his victim lay still, his fists rendering his face unrecognisable.

  He was about to leave the cell when he heard another boom from the shotgun. The inmate’s body was suddenly riddled with shot. The pellets shredded his clothes and the flesh beneath. He fell forward, his blood commingling with his victim’s.

  Milton risked a look up at the booth. The guard was reloading.

  He had to move.

  The inmates were spilling down the stairs to the communal area at the bottom of the building. Milton took the billy club with him and stepped out of the cell, following the flow along the walkway. The atmosphere was charged with a frantic energy, and exultant whoops bounced back from the walls. The breakout was gathering momentum. Soon it would be difficult to stop.

  There was going to be a full-scale riot.

  Milton was borne down the stairs by the surging crowd. He reached the bottom and caught a glimpse into the first cell as he was jostled ahead: two men were holding a third man down as a fourth watched. Another pair of inmates was scuffling, toppling back against the table tennis table and bumping the two sections apart.

  Milton heard a scream and looked up. The elevated booth had been breached, and the guard with the shotgun was struggling with the prisoners who had surged inside. The man was dragged out onto the platform and, as the men paused to watch, he was thrown over the balustrade. His body fell through the vaulted space and bounced horribly as it slammed into the concrete floor just yards from where Milton stood.

  63

  JOSIE RAN back in the direction that Mendoza had brought her.

  The building was chaotic. Staff were running freely along the corridors, hurrying to the exit.

  She bumped flush into a guard.

  “What is it?” she asked him.

  “The cells. The doors. They’re open.”

  Ziggy, she thought. It worked.

  The man looked at her, panic in his eyes. “The inmates! They’re getting out. There’s going to be a riot. You have to leave. We all have to leave.”

  “Which way is it?”

  “I’ll take you.”

  The guard set off and Josie ran behind him. He took a left and then another left. The corridors all looked the same and she hadn’t been paying attention to where Mendoza had been taking her.

  They turned a corner and she saw two orange-shirted inmates coming straight toward them.

  The guard crashed into both of them. The first inmate drew back his fist and stabbed it into the guard’s chest. Josie saw a flash of something metallic as he withdrew his arm and then the droplets of red blood on the bare concrete floor.

  The inmates spotted her, smiled, and stalked ahead.

  Josie was next to a door. She turned the handle. The door was unlocked. She pushed it open and darted inside.

  The room was dark. Josie glimpsed the shapes of a table, two chairs, and a sofa. It was some sort of waiting area. There
were no windows.

  She shut the door and looked for a key. She couldn’t see one.

  The handle rattled as it was turned and the door opened an inch.

  “Come on,” a voice called out.

  She slammed it shut again and put her back to it.

  “Come on, baby. Open up.”

  There came an angry hammering at the door.

  “It’s just me and my little shank. Come on. Open the door.”

  Shit.

  The pounding stopped. Josie waited with her back to the door, hardly daring to move. She waited another fifteen seconds and then, knowing that she had to do something, she went to the sofa, grabbed it with both hands and pulled. It was heavy, but she was able to muscle it across the room, the legs scoring marks across the wooden floor. She hauled it in front of the door and pushed it until it was flush with the wall.

  It was just in time. The handle turned again as someone tried to force the door open; the sofa jerked forward an inch or two until she pushed it back and held it in place.

  Now what?

  She was stuck here.

  She looked around the room. It was practically empty. She wished that she still had her pistol.

  That reminded her.

  She reached into her pocket and took out the cellphone that Mendoza had dropped.

  It was unlocked. She tapped in the number that she had just given Milton.

  The phone rang three times.

  “Milton?”

  “No. Hernandez.”

  “Where are you?” It was Ziggy.

  “I’m inside the building. The inmates are out. There’s a riot. I can’t leave.”

  “Hold the line.”

  There was a moment of silence and then Hicks came on the line.

  “Are you safe?” he said.

  “I’ve barricaded myself in a room.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know. Somewhere in the administrative building. The door’s not locked, though. I don’t know how long it’ll stand up.”

  There was another crash as the men outside hurled themselves against the door again.

  “Josie?”

  “You need to hurry. I can’t hold them out for ever.”