Page 8 of Master of Lies

“Fuck me,” Amos muttered. “We should’ve cleared our calendars until you were out of there.”

“Not feasible,” I told him. “Would have looked suspicious. Don’t sweat it. We planned this so I could pull the trigger myself if I needed to.”

“I don’t like it,” Amos said darkly. “Too many variables.”

“The Jeep is ready?”

“Yeah. Remy checked the battery ten days ago. Full tank of gas. Still completely covered in brush. Probably snow, too, at this point. The safe houses are ready.”

“Good. I need you to get that money delivered to Ramon’s team. The list I got you last time. Ten grand apiece. They’re handling my diversion tonight.”

“I’ll call my guy right now and get it done,” Amos said.

“Thanks. Gotta go,” I said. “Hey. Dude. Thanks for believing in me. All of you. Tell the others. You know. Just in case.”

“Don’t get sentimental on me, man. Get the fuck out of there. Call me when you’re clear. And watch yourself.”

“Will do. Later.”

I hung up, listening for a moment to make sure I was still alone, and stowed the phone in the pouch I’d fashioned, in the seam of the coverall’s pant leg.

Breaking out of the prison without any outside backup was not optimal, but that was just too goddamn bad. I strode through the recreation area, looking around until I spotted Ramon.

I found him playing cards at one of the tables. He was a tall, lanky guy, serving a sentence for armed robbery, and one of the first allies I had cultivated here, as soon as I figured out the power dynamics among the inmates.

I met Ramon’s eyes briefly, jerking my chin in the direction of the library.

He met me there a few minutes later, stopping right inside the door. I pitched my voice low. “Tonight,” I said. “Cafeteria. Seven fifteen.”

Ramon frowned. “Fuck. Short notice.”

I shrugged. I had paid for the privilege of short notice. For months, I had been funneling large sums of money on a regular basis to Ramon’s wife, Filomena, in San Jose. Enough money to cover her rent, keep all three of Ramon’s kids enrolled in private Catholic school, and pay for a nursing home for his Alzheimer’s-stricken father. In return, Ramon and his crew had agreed to start a prison riot for me.

“You’re breaking out tonight?” Ramon asked.

I just looked at him, saying nothing. He knew better than to ask me that.

Ramon glanced around to make sure no one was listening. “I have fourteen months to go,” he said quietly. “If I do this, they’ll slap on more time.”

“They might,” I said. “That risk was factored into the deal.”

“You’ll send Mena money for the additional time I serve? Double for any time served beyond my original sentence. Ten grand apiece to my crew.”

“As agreed,” I said.

“Tonight,” Ramon said, his voice flat.

I walked out of the library and headed toward my cell.

Mickey Savelletri, my cellmate, sat on the bunk, reading a paperback book from the library. His nervous leg was jittering as if it were having its own private seizure.

He looked up at me, blinking rapidly, and brandished his book. “Hey. Did you know that forests talk via fungal networks?” he asked. “Wild stuff. My brain’s on fire.”

“Great,” I said. “Let it burn.”

Mickey was a scrawny guy in his thirties, with stringy black hair, dark olive skin and huge, shadowed dark eyes. He was on the autism spectrum, and he’d had been badly in need of the protection I could offer. Prison was hard on guys like him.

After the Ready Line massacre, I’d learned that Vito Adriani, a Las Vegas crime boss, had partnered with Boer, my ex-colleague. Boer had his own security company, which occasionally had partnered with Ready Line. I’d served in the Rangers with Boer for years, but the guy had never been folded into the core Unredeemables group, for some reason I couldn’t quite pinpoint. I’d pinpointed it now. Too fucking late.

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