Last Shot (2006) (3 page)

Jameson's personal section was surprisingly spare. Thirty-one years old. Married once, long separated, though the divorce wasn't on paper yet. No kids. One sister, five years older. During his marriage he'd lived in Littlerock. The rural community of about ten thousand was located fifty miles northeast of L.A., smack in the middle of pretty much nothing. After his last deployment and vacation in Leavenworth, he hadn't returned. From what Tim knew of Littlerock, it was easy to see why.

The Dodge veered onto one of the Long Beach exits and flew across the channel on a green suspension bridge. Bear finally eased off the gas as they arced down onto Terminal Island. Home of the prison that had accommodated inmates ranging from Al Capone to Charlie Manson, the island was also an integral part of the Port of Los Angeles. Semis lined the roads end to end like building fronts. Shadowy container ships crawled in and out of berths, some large enough to give the illusion that it was the land that was casting off, washing the Ram with it. The white, ribbed tube of a pipeline twisted overhead through the island like a monorail.

Jameson had been handed a five-year sentence for stockpiling explosives. He'd gotten rolled up in a federal sting attempting to acquire two crates of frag grenades. Good-behavior credits had won him a one-year reduction.

"Five years seems a bit steep for a first-time weapons beef," Tim said. "Did Guerrera give any background?" When Marshal Tannino, roused from sleep, had pulled Tim aside at the office to remind him in a rare facile lapse of the importance of a quick takedown, Tim had missed Guerrera's full rundown.

Bear raised his voice to be heard over the loose dashboard and the garbage truck rattling by. "Jameson refused to cooperate--wouldn't name names, wear a wire, nothing--so they played up the aggravating factors and stuck it to him. Cost him years, probably."

The watchtower loomed into view. The dark plain of the harbor, glittering to the east beyond an ornamental strip of well-tended grass, underlined the tower's beaconlike appearance. The prison rose above a cyclone fence, its concrete blocks pallid yellow. Coils of razor wire formed a dense and forbidding underbrush. Rust-red bars obscured dim windows and the thousand-man confraternity of the Terminal Island Federal Correctional Institute. To the west stood a cluster of coast guard administrative buildings. They looked ready to crowd the prison right off the land, its eastern wall hanging over the water. Officers jogged along the building's walls, hauling semiautomatics, their shouts faint in wind off the ocean. The tower spotlight glared off the fake quartz rocks in the narrow run between expanses of chain link, making Tim squint. The escape had to have been as spectacular as billed. Again Tim found himself musing on Jameson's considerable training.

Bear flashed his creds at the guard in the station, who spit tobacco into a paper coffee cup and said, "Warden's expecting you. Guns stay in your vehicle."

They pulled through the gate, parked, and slid their guns into the glove box. Tim removed the handcuff key from his key chain and taped it under his watch.

He frowned at the file in his lap, and Bear plucked up the top page and studied it, as if to pin down the cause of Tim's taking offense. Tim chewed his cheek and conned the choppy harbor. The air smelled strongly of tar. The distant, sonorous call of a tanker vibrated the window.

Tim said, "Why's a guy who's racking up good-behavior credits serve most of his sentence, then break out?"

"Convicts move in mysterious ways." Bear jiggled the key to free it from the ignition. "But we work that out, we're in the game."

Across the parking lot, the warden stepped from the building and raised a hand in greeting. Tim waved back, and he and Bear unsnapped their seat belts.

Tim threw open his door, then paused. "Gimme his identifiers again. Jameson."

Bear held up the sheet to the faint light. "Six feet. Hundred ninety pounds. White."

"Great. He looks like everyone. He looks like no one."

Bear glanced at the photo on the dash. "He looks like you."

Chapter
4

The guard at the console gave them a cordial nod on their way into the secure room, where they found five men arrayed around desks and tables of inmate manufacture. The conversation stopped abruptly.

The warden, an exacting former Indian Affairs commissioner with a trimmed mustache and a limp, paused at the door. "John Sasso's our operations lieutenant, and this is Daniel McGraw, our intel specialist. They're here to assist you. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a media shitstorm to forge into."

He withdrew, and the silence resumed. Neither Sasso nor McGraw--who remained standing in a clear display of annoyance at having been summoned from more pressing matters--offered a word of greeting, and the three COs who hadn't been introduced continued wearily at their sandwiches and files. The vibe, while uncomfortable, wasn't unexpected. Deputy U.S. marshals were outsiders, and they generally got called into prison business only when correctional officers or intel specialists--who were supposed to keep their fingers on the pulse of prison underlife--failed at their jobs.

Tim offered a hand. "Tim Rackley. My partner, George Jowalski."

Whereas Sasso was dressed to code--gray slacks, white collared shirt, maroon tie with a blue blazer--McGraw had gone SWAT casual, his short sleeves cuffed over his biceps and his camo pants stuffed into the tops of unlaced boots. Sasso's belt was laden with gear: radio, two key-ring clips, a baton slotted through a metal circle. From his blazer pocket protruded an inmate rule book and a blue pad Tim guessed contained union guidelines.

"I'll walk you over to Jameson's cell," Sasso said. "You'll have to see it to believe it."

"Actually, we'd like to watch the tape of the assault first," Tim said. "Would you mind taking a look at it with us?"

"Seen it about fifty times, thanks," McGraw said.

"We were hoping to get your perspective."

"Pretty cut and dried. Guy got shanked in the neck."

Bear rose to his tiptoes and made a shape with his mouth as if to whistle--gonna be a long night.

Tim said, "Maybe we could ask you a few questions before we head over."

McGraw snapped a cell phone from his belt, tapped a button to quiet it. "If we can make this quick. Full plate, as you can imagine."

"We'll do our best," Tim said. "You catch any whispers from the snitches this week?"

"None at all."

"I saw Jameson kept perfect behavior."

A glimmer of a smirk. "Until now."

"How was he today?"

"How are any of them any day?" Sasso said.

"Anything different?" Tim asked.

McGraw again: "Another day, same shit."

"We don't keep track of every mood shift in every prisoner," Sasso added.

Bear cleared his throat. "All that sensitivity training gone to waste."

Tim forged ahead. "Can we get his medical files?"

"Nothing in 'em," McGraw said. "He's a healthy guy."

"I'd like to look at them anyway."

"Maybe we should get a sample of his toilet water, too."

"You volunteering?"

McGraw's radio squawked, and he muttered into it, "I told you--be there in a sec," then glanced up at Tim and Bear. "Look, I'm sure all this background shit helps when you're running down a serial rapist in the world, but it's different in here. Not like the street. We've got cages and captives. It's the jungle, and it's got different rules."

"It would seem he's no longer in here," Bear noted evenly.

Tim tried another tack. "I've spent some time inside."

"Unless you're full-time, you don't understand."

"Twenty-four/seven."

McGraw looked perplexed, so Bear clarified. "He means as an inmate."

This shut McGraw up. He studied Tim. Then his eyes glinted with recognition and he sat down. Spun by the media, Tim's vigilante rampage after Ginny's murder was remembered by some--particularly in law enforcement--as Charles Bronson-style legend.

"Listen," Tim said, "we're not here to bust your balls. Our job is to find your inmate and deliver him back to you, and to do that, we're pretty much dependent on your expertise."

McGraw matched Tim's stare, then thumbed down the volume on his radio.

Tim said, "Any tracks or sightings outside the facility?"

"Would we all be standing here?"

"Any security irregularities?"

"A family of raccoons wreaked havoc a few weeks back with two of eight motion sensors along the beach, so we turned 'em off. Just those two. You can't do anything from that point anyways except swim straight out--if Jameson tried a hook-around, the tower would have him in seconds."

"Any chance of a water escape?"

"Unlikely, but possible. We have coast guard out in the harbor."

"What was the murder weapon?"

"We still aren't sure. You know there was a building mood in here, right? The slashing last week? I briefed your guy--Guerrera?--over the phone." McGraw waited for Tim's nod. "After the incident, we tossed the cells. Took everything--razors, pens, even spoons. So I've got no clue what Jameson used for the stabbing, and you can't make it out on the tape."

"Did Jameson seem caught up in the tension this week?" Bear asked. When McGraw didn't answer right away, he added, "On edge?"

McGraw's first hesitation. "Not that I noticed, no."

Bear said, "Tell us about the victim."

"Boss Hahn. Shotcaller for the AB, good for three murders. Armed heist that went south. He was serving his second--life on the installment plan."

"Jameson have a beef with him?"

"No more than anyone else. Boss ran the show."

Sasso added, "But you never know when someone steps on someone else. What sets them off. They're good guys, most of them. The only difference between them and human beings is the length of their fuse." He held up his pinkie.

"Why do you think Jameson would risk an escape with a year and change on his sentence?" Tim said. "He was serving perfect time? Why now?"

"Why does anyone break out?" Sasso said. "To be free. People flip out sometimes, can't do the time anymore."

McGraw shook his head, and for the first time Tim sensed an element of rivalry between the two of them. "He had to escape. You don't kill Boss and stay alive in here."

"Square one," Bear said. "What's Jameson have against Boss?"

"Nothing," Tim and McGraw said at the same time.

"Who'd Jameson run with?" Bear asked.

"No one, really," Sasso said.

"Was he religious?"

"He wore a cross, but he never went to chapel," McGraw said. "I monitor attendance personally."

No chaplain to question--another dead end.

Bear pressed on. "Tight with his cellie? Imaad Durand?"

McGraw hoisted his eyebrows and riffled through the nearest mound of paperwork. "Bill, toss me Jameson's jacket." One of the mute COs threw Walker's central file across the table, and McGraw thumbed through it. Exasperated, Bear blew out a breath--they were looking for the kind of information that wouldn't be recorded in a prisoner's C-file. Still reading, McGraw said, "Not particularly."

"He have any females come to see him?"

"You mean like conjugal visits?" Sasso asked.

McGraw grinned. "We don't have a Felon Reproduction Program in the federal system."

"Right. I meant regular visits," Tim said.

McGraw shuffled back through the files. "Not a one."

Bear whistled, jotting in his notepad.

Tim asked, "He have any jobs?"

McGraw's eyes scanned down the page. "Food service, Unicor, maintenance detail, trash orderly, laundry detail. The usual shit."

"How was his money situation?"

McGraw flipped the page. "He had about seventy bucks on the books. Put twenty on his canteen account this morning."

"What was the balance before?"

"Eleven bucks. Would've lasted him another week or so."

"Why bother adding to it if he was planning to escape that night?"

As it became apparent that no one was going to produce an answer, the door opened and a young CO leaned in. "Look what we just picked out of the shitheap." He let a plastic Baggie unroll dramatically; it gave a satisfying snap. Nestled in the bottom was a blue toothbrush.

"Lemme see that, Newlin." McGraw laid the bag on the table, and the men leaned over it. The hard rubber end of the toothbrush had been whittled to a point. A good two inches of red stain. Strips of cloth wrapped the handle, secured with paste. A shoelace served as a pommel. The bristles were dark with ash.

"Where'd he get the paste?" Sasso asked. "Unicor?"

"Imaad kept a little jar of it for his posters. He won't use gum, cuz he's Muslim and they can't chew gum for some reason. So he made his own paste out of soap and wax he traded for with Zeller." Newlin offered Tim and Bear a slightly embarrassed look and smoothed his sandy mustache, which he no doubt wore to try to add years to his boyish face. "I've worked J-Unit six months now."