Pure Dynamite (2 page)

Irv Wallace cleared his throat and removed his sunglasses. The guard's right eye was slightly off plumb, giving him a harsh look that matched his attitude. "Listen up. Bus can't go any further. Roadbed's washed out. We'll have to walk to the site. With the equipment."

The inmates grumbled, but not too loud. Working a road gang—even under miserable conditions—beat being locked up in a prison cell. Anything beat that.

Especially today. Christ, Adam would belly crawl across razor blades with all the equipment strapped on his back to get to the work site.

The grumbling grew louder, which set Wallace off yet again. He clanged his metal clipboard against the interior bars.

"North Carolina statute 148-26 says all able-bodied prison inmates are required to perform diligently all work assignments provided for them," the guard recited from memory. "Diligently means doing whatever I tell you. Got that? It also says 'failure to perform such work assignments may result in disciplinary action.' Anybody need a demonstration of disciplinary action?"

When no one volunteered, Wallace locked his good eye on Adam before continuing in a drawl as thick and annoying as the late-July heat. "You're awfully quiet, Hollywood. Was there any part of that statute you didn't understand?"

Wallace dragged the slur out.
Holl-Leee-Wood.

Adam knew what was whispered behind his back. Movie star face, Frankenstein body. He also knew the guard was spoiling for a fight. Part of him ached to oblige. But not now.

Stifling the urge, Adam looked away.

"I didn't think so." Pleased with his imagined victory, Wallace hiked up his pants and puffed his chest before speaking into the two-way radio clipped near his shoulder.

The driver moved to unshackle the inmates, an easy process since there were only four. Prison road crews were usually composed of eight men, but under the governor's emergency disaster plan, they'd been split into smaller groups to cover a larger geographic area. Two armed guards still accompanied each squad manned with medium-risk inmates.

As the inmates disembarked, Adam positioned himself between Potter and Lyle, who still swapped venomous glares.

"You prisoners turn and put your hands on the bus. Any unauthorized movement will be interpreted as intent to flee." Wallace motioned with his shotgun, while quoting yet another statute granting use of deadly force.

Flee? Adam eyed the flooded fields surrounding them. With no place to hide, no cover, it was a giant kill zone. A suicide run. Hell, there was scarcely enough ground on the raised access road for the men to stand beside the bus.

Tuning out the guard's sermon, Adam put his hands just above shoulder height and eased his head back. It felt good to be off the bus. Off prison grounds.

Squinting against the searing sun, he drew a deep breath. Free air. He'd missed it. God, he missed a lot. He'd only been incarcerated three months—nothing, compared to some others—but it still had felt like a life sentence.

He thought of what he'd like to do to the man responsible for putting him behind bars. The double-dealing bastard had a lot to answer for.

"Y'all turn around and pay attention!" Wallace pointed to a line of trees about a half-mile to the west. "Tarheel Creek runs behind those woods. There are ten ditches that empty into it. Every one of 'em is blocked with trash from the storm so they can't drain. And that's keeping the interstate flooded. Department of Transportation wants 'em cleared fast. Which means no slacking. You got that, McEdwin?"

Adam slanted his eyes toward Lyle. The younger man had been about to say something—probably a smart-ass retort—but stopped. Maybe there was hope for the kid after all.

"Then grab a wheelbarrow," Wallace shouted after each man had donned an orange safety vest emblazoned front and back with the word
inmate
. "Daylight's a-wasting."

An hour later, Adam waded knee-deep in water swirling with the run-off from a nearby hog farm. He squashed a hungry insect buzzing near his neck.

Two more flew in to take its place. The putrid flood- water provided perfect breeding conditions for mosquitoes and biting flies. As annoying as they were, the insects were the least of his worries.

Now that they were actually getting on with the task, a new qualm surfaced with each step. The first two landmarks Adam had been instructed to watch for hadn't been there. The fact that they'd taken a slightly different route was probably to blame. At least that's what he hoped.

They cut across a pasture, heading south. The land rolled and dipped, much of it underwater, but finally he spotted a stretch of split-rail fence. A hundred yards beyond it sat a red barn.
Bright red, you can't miss it.
He hoisted the shovels he carried higher on his shoulder. For the first time in months he felt a spark of optimism.

Which died when they arrived at the first ditch.

"Well I'll be a—" The driver held up a hand, indicating they should halt. "Hey Irv! Look at that!"

On the opposite bank, the runoff had carved a steep ravine in the hill. A muddy chute formed, allowing garbage from an illegal dumpsite to slip down and obstruct the drainage ditch.

This was no small blockage; there was everything from rusted washing machines to yellow bats of insulation. But the
coup de grace
: a mountain of black rubber tires. While the landslide looked recent, a virtual lake of floodwater already gurgled behind the well-packed dam, growing larger by the minute.

Adam located the prearranged landmarks once again. The fence. The barn. Where the hell was the other?

A sickening feeling of
deja vu
settled in his stomach. This had happened twice before. A dry run, he'd been told. But he'd been promised this time was it. God help him, someone would pay if it wasn't.

Scanning the area one more time, Adam finally spotted his last marker. It was buried under some debris, barely visible. That it hadn't been lost in the landslide was a miracle. He released a pent-up breath, relieved he wasn't facing failure this soon.

"Hold up while he checks this mess." Wallace pointed to the driver.

"Me?" The driver glanced up at the hill. "I don't need to check it out. Any idiot can see there's a ton of garbage still perched up there. If I sneeze wrong it will fall."

"Then don't sneeze.
Idiot."
Wallace didn't like having his authority questioned. "And hurry back."

Adam clenched his jaw as the driver kicked at a large blue coffee can before disappearing from sight. Seconds stretched without end as they stood, broiling beneath the unrelenting sun. Potter mumbled threats under his breath, low enough so that Wallace couldn't hear, yet loud enough Adam wanted to deck him.

The driver returned, dour faced. "It's worse than I thought. There's twice as much crap piled up behind this."

Wallace shrugged. "So they have to work twice as hard. Big deal."

"You don't understand. This is too big for four men and shovels. It'll take dynamite. Maybe a crane. We need to forget this ditch and move on."

"Dynamite? It don't look that bad to me," Wallace said. "Now you sound like them. Always wanting to skip the shitty jobs."

"That's bull—" The driver launched into defense mode, arguing his point.

As much as he disliked the senior guard, Adam silently sided with Wallace on this one. Skipping this ditch was out of the question.

"Five minute break," Wallace finally shouted. "You can sit down, just don't get too comfy."

As Wallace turned his back to talk into his radio, the driver shifted away, more intent on eavesdropping on Wallace's conversation than watching the inmates.

Lyle lowered himself to the ground beside Adam and picked at his fingernails. "What's going on?"

"Not sure. A lot depends on him." He nodded toward Wallace, mentally measuring distances and weighing alternatives. One thing was absolutely certain: Adam was not going to return to prison.

"Follow my lead if we're ordered to move to the next site," he said.

"What if I—"

"My
lead." Adam noticed Potter watching them. He met the inmate's gaze, held it until the other man looked away. "And let me handle Potter."

"I can take him." Lyle flexed his arm.

"Sure you can. The point is: Don't. Brawling with him could blow everything."

Wallace's radio crackled as the voice on the other end instructed him to stand by while they checked with the D.O.T.

"Stand by? Right." The driver spat and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "Sounds like we'll be here a while."

Wallace mopped his brow with a bandamia, then lit a cigarette. He frowned at the prisoners. "Well, what are you waiting for? The friggin' trash fairy? Start bagging that crap on the bank. Just don't touch anything near the water."

"Be ready." Adam climbed to his feet, thankful their original plan was still operable. Lyle was not the type he'd want to ad-lib with.

Grabbing a garbage bag, Adam moved across the sodden ground and claimed an area by stopping to pick up an empty soda bottle. Lyle moved off to the right leaving behind Potter and the other inmate who were just pushing up from the ground.

"See there?" Wallace pointed to Adam. "That's the kind of attitude I expect. Show 'em how to do it, Hollywood." Grinning, the guard walked off to respond to a radio call.

Pretending to pick up a piece of garbage, Potter bumped into Adam as soon as the guard's back was turned. "You trying to make the rest of us look bad,
Hollywood?"

Adam drew up his full height. At six-four, two-thirty, he towered over most men. So did his reputation. Inside the prison walls, he'd carved out his own niche, made his own rules. Most people gave him a wide berth. But he still had enemies. Everybody did. And Potter was everyone's enemy; a trouble-making prick who never thought beyond the moment.

Adam wanted to end this before it started. "You don't want to go there. Not today. I'll pound you into sand."

Potter glanced sideways, nervous, noticed the other inmates watching. Straightening, he tried to save face. "I don't care how many people they say you killed you don't scare me."

"Then maybe I need to try harder."

Potter backed down. "We'll finish this later."

Later
meant back at prison, where the ultimate jury of peers presided. There was an unwritten rule that inmates were supposed to look out for each other. No matter what. The old Us against Them. Except the rules shifted with the wind, often pitting inmate against inmate. Ultimately it was about power. Some had it, some didn't. Most abused it.

I won't miss that either.

Adam bent to pick up the trash in front of him: a soggy newspaper half covering a blue, three-pound coffee can. He grabbed the can, its top covered by a snap-on plastic lid. It was heavy, full, but not with coffee.

He lowered the can into his bag, adrenaline kicking up as he checked the contents. There was no turning back now. Apprehension sank fangs into his spine as he thought of what was at stake, of what could go wrong. And how easily the line between right and wrong blurred.

He glanced at Lyle, nodding once. This was it. If the kid blew this, he'd strangle him.