Stand Your Ground (24 page)

On the other side of the sally port leading into the maximum security wing was a fairly large reception room, and to one side of it was the small visitors' room where inmates could confer with their lawyers.

That room was divided in half by a sheet of bulletproof glass with a counter and bench butted up against it opposite each other. Inmates and visitors talked to each other through an intercom system, but no physical contact was allowed.

Stark assisted George Baldwin into that room and then helped him sit down on the bench. He looked around, saw Riley Nichols watching worriedly from the doorway, and said, “You think you can find something else to use as a pad for the warden's wound?”

“I know I can,” she said. She started unbuttoning her functional khaki shirt.

Stark frowned a little at that until he saw the lacy camisole Riley wore underneath the shirt. That actually made for a nice contrast, he thought, tough and all business on the outside, frilly and romantic underneath.

He wondered if her personality was the same, not that he had any romantic interest in her himself.

She pulled the camisole up and ripped a large piece of fabric from the bottom of it. She folded that into a pad and handed it to Stark, who used it to replace the blood-soaked handkerchief Baldwin had been holding to the wound.

Riley ripped strips of cloth from the undergarment as well and said, “We can use these to tie the dressing in place. Move over a little. I can do it.”

After watching her swift, efficient movements for a moment as she worked on Baldwin's wound, Stark asked, “You've done things like this before, haven't you?”

“I had some medical training while I was in the Marines.”

Stark grinned. “You were a leatherneck, too, Ms. Nichols?”

“Semper fi, Mr. Stark.”

That explained some things, Stark thought. It must have driven Riley crazy, working for a liberal news network and having to be around people like Alexis Devereaux all the time, but sometimes folks didn't have much choice in the matter.

Years and years of any economic recovery being stifled by Democratic policies designed to expand their base and erode the middle class had left America a nation of people who had to take any job they could get, just to survive. And anybody who worked a full-time job was extremely lucky.

“Let's stretch him out on this bench,” Riley suggested. She lifted Baldwin's feet while Stark took hold of the warden's shoulders. They maneuvered him into a reclining position so he could rest easier.

Baldwin's face was pale and his eyes were closed. His chest rose and fell, so Stark knew his old friend was still alive. Baldwin's breathing was irregular, though. He really did need qualified medical attention, and the sooner, the better.

But they all needed a lot of things right about now, Stark mused, most notably some reinforcements from outside.

“I'll keep an eye on him,” Riley said. “You should help that guard set up our defenses.”

Stark nodded. He said, “Give a holler if you need me.”

He went out into the reception room and found Mitch Cambridge directing the other guards to move the desks and a couple of filing cabinets into a line facing the entrance.

“I know this furniture won't provide much cover if the terrorists make it this far,” Cambridge told Stark, “but I figure it's better than nothing.”

“You're right. That sally port's your main line of defense, though. If they breach both doors . . .”

Stark's voice trailed off, but the grim import of his words was clear.

“If they breach both doors, we'll have to try to keep them from getting on into the cell block. I'm going to put marksmen on the upper level. Luckily the entrance isn't very wide, so only a limited number can come through it at one time.”

“They could throw grenades or fire rockets through it,” Stark pointed out.

“If they do that, they risk injuring or killing the men they came to rescue,” Cambridge said. “I'm hoping they won't take that chance. A smaller force can hold off a much larger one if you limit the number that can come at you.”

“Gates of fire,” Stark murmured.

“Thermopylae, exactly.”

“Those Spartans wound up getting killed, you know,” Stark said.

Cambridge shrugged.

“I think this strategy is still our best bet.”

“Long odds are better than no odds at all,” Stark agreed.

One of the guards posted in the sally port between the two doors called, “Somebody's coming!”

Stark heard the despair in Cambridge's voice as the young man said, “Already?”

He and Stark hurried through the inner door, which was still open. They peered through the reinforced glass in the outer door's window and saw a large group of men in bright orange jumpsuits hurrying along the corridor.

“Those aren't terrorists,” Stark said.

“I know,” Cambridge said, and now relief was evident in his tone. “I recognize most of them. They're inmates from the minimum security area.”

“And there are more guards with them,” Stark pointed out. “Kincaid must have sent them.”

Cambridge reached for the controls that opened the outer door, then hesitated.

“What if it's a trick?” he asked. “The terrorists could be right behind them, forcing them along at gunpoint and using them as shields.”

“Wait until they get here,” Stark suggested. “That won't take long, and we ought to be able to tell then.”

He was right. The newcomers began crowding up against the entrance to the maximum security wing. The press of inmates parted to let one of the guards through.

“Hankins!” Cambridge said through the intercom.

“Is that you, Mitch?” the guard called Hankins responded. “Let us in. Kincaid said to tell you he sent us.”

“Have you seen any of the terrorists?”

“Not yet.” Hankins looked nervous, and some of the inmates were obviously flat-out scared, with good reason. “We heard a lot of shooting outside, though.”

Cambridge glanced at Stark, who nodded. Cambridge pushed the right buttons, and the outer door began to rumble open.

As soon as the gap was wide enough, inmates and officers surged through. Stark was glad to see that none of the inmates had tried to take weapons away from the guards. Evidently they were smart enough to realize that their best chance for living through this lay in cooperation.

Some of the guards were carrying extra weapons. Stark reached out and took one of the semiautomatic rifles. The guard looked like he didn't want to hand it over to a civilian, but Cambridge nodded for him to go ahead.

“Got any extra magazines?” Stark asked.

The guard gave him one, and Stark slid it into his hip pocket.

“Think I'll go take a look around,” he told Cambridge.

“Wait a minute,” Cambridge objected. “We were supposed to rally here, not go wandering around the prison.”

“I'd like to know how close the enemy is. Right now we don't have any idea how long we've got to get ready.”

“That's true, I suppose,” Cambridge said. He frowned. “Can you find your way back here?”

“Well, now, that's a good question,” Stark admitted. “I tried to pay more attention this time and take note of all the landmarks.” A grim smile touched his mouth under the mustache. “Worse comes to worst, I'll just follow the sound of gunfire.”

“You're liable to get trapped on the wrong side of these doors with hundreds of terrorists.”

“I'll take my chances,” Stark said.

He knew it was a wild, grandstand play, the sort of thing he had done when he was a youngster in the jungles of Vietnam. He wished he had some of his fellow Marines from those days with him now. Rich Threadgill was crazy as a loon, but there was nobody better to have at your side in a fight.

Maybe this foolhardiness was the cancer talking, Stark mused. In remission or not, he knew it was still lurking inside him like a time bomb. One of these days it would kill him, if he wanted to wait that long. Maybe it was whispering in the back of his mind that he didn't want to go out that way if he had a choice.

Or maybe it was just strategically smart for him to scout out the enemy. The chances of any of them pulling through this were small enough already without the terrorists taking him and his companions by surprise.

“All right, go ahead,” Cambridge said. “But this door is going to be closed and locked behind you, and it takes a little while to open it. If you come hotfooting back with a bunch of killers right behind you, I may not be able to help you.”

“I understand,” Stark said. He gave Cambridge a nod and then turned and started along the corridor at a trot.

He reached a corner, turned, and was gone.

 

 

As soon as Kincaid hit the floor, he grabbed his right wrist with his left hand to steady it and began squeezing the pistol's trigger. The 9 mm semiautomatic blasted twice.

Both slugs punched into the chest of the first man in the group of attackers. He stumbled and fell, and the two men right behind him tripped over him.

Kincaid shot each of them in the head.

Even crazed terrorists were taken a little aback by being splattered with blood and brains from their comrades' exploding skulls. They slowed their charge and then stopped.

Kincaid knew they would recover from the shock in a matter of seconds and then come rampaging down the corridor toward him, and there was still no place for him to go.

But he had done some damage, had killed three of the bastards, and he still had rounds in the gun's magazine. He was ready to start firing again . . .

That was when a riot gun roared and two more of the terrorists went down, shredded into bloody rags by a double load of buckshot. More shots slammed against the concrete walls and set up a deafening racket.

Kincaid realized the front ranks of the enemy force had halted right where the corridors intersected. Some of the inmates must have made it out of the cell block by now, and obviously they were armed. They had started shooting at the first thing they saw.

Which, to Kincaid's great good fortune, had been the terrorists.

His luck was only momentary, though. Either the inmates would overrun this bunch of terrorists and wipe them out, or else the terrorists would drive the inmates back into the cell block.

Either way, he would be left facing a bunch of armed men who wanted to kill him.

Unless he reached the next cross corridor while the two groups of killers were busy with each other.

He rolled over and surged to his feet, ready to make a run for it.

That good luck deserted him even faster than he thought it might. Several of the terrorists noticed him fleeing, broke off their battle against the inmates, and started to pursue him. A gun went off and the bullet whipped past Kincaid's ear.

He saw movement ahead of him and started to bring up the pistol, figuring that the way things were going he was trapped between two groups of terrorists, but it was John Howard Stark who stepped around a corner and smoothly brought an AR-15 to his shoulder.

“Get down, Lucas!” Stark barked.

Kincaid hit the deck again. Stark fired four swift shots over him. Guns clattered to the tile floor behind Kincaid.

Stark lowered the rifle and called, “Come on!”

He didn't have to tell Kincaid twice. Kincaid was up and running again in the blink of an eye. He didn't look behind him.

He didn't have to look in order to know that Stark had drilled the terrorists who were giving chase to him.

Stark covered him until Kincaid reached the corner. Together, the two men ducked into the narrow service corridor that crossed the main corridor.

“What are you doing here?” Kincaid asked as his pulse hammered inside his head. “You're supposed to be at the maximum security wing with the others.”

“Thought I'd do a little scouting,” Stark replied. “Find out how far into the prison those terrorists had made it.”

“Now you know.”

“Yeah,” Stark said. “That was the main cell block where they were fighting somebody, wasn't it?”

“That's right.”

“We've got guards holed up in there?”

“No,” Kincaid said. “I turned the inmates loose and left guns for them.”

They had been trotting quickly along the service corridor as they talked. Now Stark slowed, pausing to look over at Kincaid.

“I know,” Kincaid said. “You don't have to tell me. That's wrong on so many levels. I used those men as cannon fodder.”

“You did what any military commander who wanted to win a battle would do,” Stark said. “You devised a strategy to slow down the enemy's advance and whittle down his numerical superiority.”

“I did what every enlisted man and noncom has cussed the brass for, ever since war was invented. I saw men as pawns, instead of human beings.”

“If that was true, what you did wouldn't be gnawing at your guts right now. You know as well as I do the ones who really don't regard any of us as human beings. It's those terrorists. We're just godless infidels to them. The more of us who die, the better. We're trying to stop that.”

Kincaid drew in a deep breath and nodded.

“I suppose you're right, Mr. Stark. But I still don't think I'm cut out for command.”

“Some of the best generals who have ever lived have thought the same thing. We'd better get moving again. And make it John Howard, all right?”

“Sure,” Kincaid said. “Where to now, John Howard?”

“We know the terrorists have reached the main cell block. Those inmates will keep them busy for a while, but I don't think they'll be able to stop that bunch. I think we should head back to maximum security and let everybody there know that they'll be having company soon.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Just one thing . . . you better lead the way.” Stark grinned. “I hate to say it, but it was pure dumb luck that put me in the right place at the right time to help you. No matter how hard I try, I still get turned around in this place!”