Page 34 of Endangered Species
Webster’s mouth went dry. He was outnumbered. He was screwed. He shook his head. “No, boss.”
He shucked off his blanket and hopped down onto the floor, allowing them to manhandle him, roughly shackling his wrists and ankles with far more force than necessary. Webster had imagined that when the guards finally came for him, he would be terrified. Maybe he’d cry or beg for his life, but his brain was eerily still. There was no panic, no racing heart or sweating, just a stillness in his head, like he was watching it all happen to somebody else, like a documentary or a movie.
Webster remained still and silent, a strange, almost euphoric feeling filling his core. Maybe he’d finally cracked, but a small part of him worried if he opened his mouth, he’d just start laughing and maybe never stop. That wouldn’t help the situation, regardless of what was to come.
They flanked him as they marched him from his cell and down the stairs. The inmates without rooms watched as they made a show of taking him out, like he was a violent serial killer and not a computer nerd arrested for terroristic threats. The show of force was unnecessary, and Webster was certain it would all go back to whatever lies they told to justify his corpse later.
For the first time since Webster had arrived, the guards took him from the pods back to the large castle-like building that made up the administrative offices of the prison. They loaded him onto an elevator, exiting onto the darkened second floor hallway. The cadence of the guards’ booted feet on the Spanish tiles created a rhythm in Webster’s head, combining with his chains rattling and scraping like Marley’s ghost.
Was this where they were going to do it? Take the cuffs off and tell him to run so they could shoot him and say he tried to escape. Would it even matter if he ran or not? He wondered, if any of the office doors were unlocked, would he stand a chance?
When they turned down a final darkened tunnel of a hallway, there was a door at the very end with a frosted glass window and the barest hint of a light behind it. It was only as they marched closer that he realized there was a word in gold letters across the glass.
WARDEN
The blond guard rapped on the glass twice before opening the door. Inside was a man with salt and pepper hair and wire rimmed glasses perched too low on his nose to be of any use for anything but maybe reading. He wore jeans and a white zip front cardigan, like he hadn’t anticipated making this midnight trek to the prison.
Guess he got the note.
“I’m Warden Jethro King. It was brought to my attention that you wanted to speak with me,” the man said, tone bland, as if he didn’t expect this meeting to last long.
Webster reminded himself he now had the upper hand. “Nicholas Webster. Do you want to have this discussion in front of them?”
The officers puffed out their chests, and the one who did most of the talking growled, “We’re not leaving the warden alone with you.”
The warden opened his drawer and set a Browning 9mm on his desk, barrel pointed at Webster’s chest. “Leave us. I’ll be fine. I’ll hit the button when we’ve finished our little chat.” The men gave one long look at Webster before leaving and closing the door behind them. Once they were alone, the warden traced a finger over the barrel of his gun. “You have a lot of nerve summoning me here.”
Webster arched a brow. “Do you really want to get into which of us has more nerve, Warden King? I have a whole bunch of files that say you’d win.”
The man’s hand went to the trigger. “I could just shoot you.”
Webster’s pulse jumped, but he gave a bored shrug. “I suppose you could, but that would trigger everything I know being sent to every major news outlet in the country as well as several civil rights groups…complete with names. Names like yours. Up to you, I suppose.”
The muscle in the warden’s jaw ticked, but he eased back in his chair. “If you have enough information to destroy us, what are we doing here, Mr. Webster?”
That was the question, wasn’t it? “My boss is about to hand over all my data to his former NSA buddy. He’s already working on proving I didn’t hack the FBI. While I’m sure your guy is good, he wasn’t good enough to dismantle my firewalls or delete my program before I found the data I needed. Luckily for me, your guards didn’t think anything about my attorney having a laptop with her or I never would have had the information I needed to put all the pieces together.”
The man threaded his fingers together over his slight paunch. “You should think carefully about what you do with that information. There are people involved in this who go way higher than you and I, Mr. Webster.”
“Oh, don’t I know it,” Webster said with a smirk. “I mean, just one simple search of records and I easily found four judges, two law clerks, an assistant DA, and two public defenders on the take. Imagine if somebody had more time to dive deeper?”
“Get to the point, Mr. Webster. What happens now?”
“What happens next is up to you…and them, I suppose,” Webster said, voice steady. “See, Elite doesn’t really like to get involved in this sort of thing. We’re simply a security agency. We have clients whose businesses are less than savory. I wasn’t trying to expose your little prison scam when I created my computer program, I was simply trying to free my…brother.”
“What are you trying to say?” King asked, his frown highlighting the wrinkles on his forehead and cheeks, showing his age.
Webster mimicked the warden’s body language, folding his hands over his stomach. “I’m saying this can go one of two ways. One: you make the charges against me go away like they were never there and you release Cyrus Whitaker immediately. Two: You do nothing and spend the next ten years swimming in lawsuits.”
The warden scoffed. “Getting you out of here requires only a phone call, but I’m afraid your friend is in a bit of trouble right now. I can’t ignore that he poisoned and maimed another inmate—”
“One who was threatening to gang rape and kill me,” Webster said through gritted teeth.
“Regardless,” King said dismissively. “I can’t just ignore what he did, and I certainly can’t just pick up the phone and set a prisoner free just because. That’s not how the system works.”
Webster pulled a face. “Well, you better think of something quickly or your little prison is about to become the hub of an enormous scandal. Imagine if the world found out that six hundred and forty-four prisoners had been framed over the last three decades. What happens then? What happens when every case tried by those judges and attorneys is now appealed in the courts because it’s been proven they’ve rigged trials before?”
The warden sat forward, removing his glasses and scraping his hands over his face. “Do you have any idea what you’d be doing? The prison system would be in ruins.”
