Page 94 of No Plan B

“What did he want you to do?”

“Go certain places. Certain times. Where people would see me. That was all.”

“You were his patsy in waiting. When he felt the heat, he framed you.”

“Right. Then I got in more trouble. Most of that was on me. But it started with him.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Not your fault. Just tell me, how are we going to get out if we can’t use the key?”

“I have an idea. But we could use a diversion first.”

—

Reacher smashed thesquare of glass with his elbow and jabbed the button that lay behind it. A klaxon spooled up and began to wail. Red lights started to flash. Reacher joined Begovic at the window and they looked down at the exercise yards. Inmates started to appear from two of the units. A and B. Slowly at first. The men looked tentative. Uncertain. Then the streams of bodies grew faster. More boisterous. The yards started to fill up. Inmates jostled and pushed. Guards appeared in the watchtowers. One had a bullhorn as well as a rifle. He started to call out instructions. They were muffled. Indistinct. Whatever he was saying, the prisoners took no notice.

Reacher turned to Begovic. “Why is no one coming out of C Block?”

Begovic shrugged. “Don’t know.”

“Is the block in use?”

“Think so. It was before I went back in solitary. Used to see guys from there in the chow hall. Doubt they closed it down since then. Why would they? Where would everyone go?”

Reacher thought about his conversation with Maurice, the journalist, outside Hix’s house. About drugs. Maurice’s theory that Minerva was making them. Then supplying them to the captive population. Reacher had dismissed the idea when he found out about the organ trading. Now he was reconsidering. Maybe this wasn’t an either/or situation. Maybe Minerva was greedy enough to do both. He said, “These guys from C Block. Do you remember anything about them?”

“I guess. They were kind of cliquey. Sat together, mostly. Didn’t talk to the other prisoners. Seemed friendlier with the guards.”

—

Reacher led theway back down the concrete stairs and then along a bunch of corridors and walkways. It was a trial-and-error process. Three times they came to doors that wouldn’t open. The fire alarm created a wider accessible zone than usual between the custodial units and the exercise yards, but that didn’t extend to the perimeter of the prison. Its border wasn’t predictable. Reacher and Begovic had to thread their way back and forth, sometimes doubling back from blockages, sometimes looping around obstacles. Reacher expected to run into a guard at every doorway. Around every bend. But in that respect the diversion was working. Everyone’s attention was focused on the exercise yards. And Reacher didn’t have to worry about the cameras. There hadn’t been time for the monitors to be fixed. So after five long minutes, and a route only a drunk, crazy crow would fly, Reacher and Begovic wound up at the entrance to Unit C.

The door to the hub was standing open. It was wedged by a cinder block. Reacher led the way inside. The basic layout was the same as in the segregation unit. There was a square, central space with wings running perpendicular to each wall. The door to each one was open. The sound of voices and movement and activity was spilling out like they were in the foyer of an office or a workshop. The air was heavy with solvents and the hint of smoke.

Reacher started with the west wing. It was like the offspring of an art studio and a dormitory. There were six beds evenly spaced between areas full of easels covered with canvases. More were hanging on the walls. There were metal shelves overflowing with paint pots and jars of thinner and packs of brushes. Extra lights had been fixed on the ceiling. They were fitted with some kind of blue bulbs so that the whole space felt like it was bathed in daylight even though there were no windows. There were six guys in there. They had faded, stained aprons over their prison uniforms. They were all busy. One was working on a copy of a Monet. Two on Van Goghs. One on a Mondrian. One on a Picasso. One was flinging rough daubs of paint all over a long rectangular canvas that was stretched out on the floor. None of them paid any attention to Reacher or Begovic.

The north wing was the domain of four guys who were working on documents. Two with computers. Two by hand. Reacher looked over one of the manual guy’s shoulders. There were two pieces of paper in front of him. They were the same size. One was filled with writing. It was someone’s will. It painstakingly set out the names of people who were going to get a bunch of cash and jewelry and cars and a collection of antique shotguns. The second page was half-full. The script looked identical. It listed the same items. The same quantities. The same values. But the names of the people who were set to inherit were different. A woman who wasn’t mentioned at all in the first document was set to clean up with the second.

Reacher said, “Could you write a letter in someone else’s handwriting?”

The guy with the pen said, “Sure. Whose?”

“What if it was a suicide note?”

“ ’Course. Those are easy. No technical terms. Not too long. Not often, anyway.”

The east wing was full of sculptors and jewelers. Three guys were chipping away at blocks of marble. One had clay up to his elbows. One was welding giant girders together. One was hollowing out a tree trunk. Five were melting yellow and white metals in dented crucibles and adding stones of all kinds of colors to make rings and bracelets and pendants. There were posters on the wall showing enlarged versions of signature pieces by Tiffany and Cartier and Bvlgari. Some of the trinkets on the guys’ workbenches were pretty much indistinguishable to Reacher’s eye.

The south wing was home to six guys with computers. They were sitting on threadbare office chairs, staring at screens perched on beat-up, rickety desks and rattling away at cordless keyboards. Three of them were virtually inert, like robots, with just their fingers and eyes showing signs of life. The others were almost dancing in their seats like concert pianists or seventies rock musicians.

Reacher tapped one of the animated guys on the shoulder. He said, “Would you have a problem hacking into someone’s email?”

The guy stopped fidgeting and said, “Yeah. Huge problem. I only do it like fifty times a day.”

“You could read someone’s messages?”

“Read them. Alter them. Delete them. Copy them. Whatever you want.”

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