Michael swiped one hand across his freckled forehead and bowed his head in thought again. At last he nodded, uneasily.
“I know how to do it. It isn’t exactly like breaking them out of San Quentin. Renée visits the prisoners for lunch every day . . . that’s when they meet for their little book club. That’s the only time those boys ever come out of the meat locker. Renée tidied up a far corner of the basement, put down carpet and some easy chairs, so they’d have a nice place to read and talk. While they’re meeting, whoever is on guard steps into the meat locker to clean up. Empty the bucket they pee in during the day. Gather up the dirty clothes. That sort of thing. So maybe while he’s in there, the Mazz comes back, says, ‘Oops, I forgot my book.’ And then on his way out closes the meat-locker door. The guard is stuck in there for the whole hour. He can kick and shout all he wants. That meat locker is pretty soundproof with the door clapped shut. They’ll never hear him during a noisy lunch, not with the trapdoor closed.
“But Renée and the men would have to walk out past all the people in the cafeteria.”
Michael shook his head. “There’s another way out of the basement. There’s some steps that lead up to the parking lot out back. I guess that’s where the trucks brought in supplies. Those doors are locked from the outside with two padlocks, but I could make sure they were unlocked. Renée and Gil and the Mazz would have to be back by one A.M., when their little book club wraps up for the day. Renée lets the guard out, says, ‘Sorry! We didn’t know you were stuck in here, couldn’t hear you over all the noise from people above us.’ Whoever pulls meat-locker duty will be some pissed, but I bet they won’t even tell Ben Patchett. Too embarrassed. Also, who wants to wind up sucking a rock for two days, when no one got hurt and everything turned out fine?”
Nick sat watching them both, his knees drawn up under his chin. He couldn’t know what they were talking about, didn’t read lips, but his face was as ill as if he were watching the two of them handle sticks of TNT.
“Good, Michael. That’s good,” Harper said. “It’s simple. With this kind of thing, the simpler the better, don’t you think?”
He ran his thumb along the tight twists of his beard. “I think it’s just great . . . as long as the prisoners don’t decide to knock Renée down and run for it as soon as they’re out of the basement.”
“They wouldn’t need to knock her down,” Harper said. “If they decided to run, Renée would run with them. But I think . . . I think she can convince them they have a better chance of long-term survival if they ally themselves with the Fireman. They don’t just want to escape, they want to last.” She had not forgotten about the way Gil spoke of the Fireman, with a mix of quiet admiration and something approaching reverence.
“Yeah, well. Maybe. But maybe when they get out of the basement, it would be best if Allie was waiting for them out in the parking lot, with a rifle over her shoulder. She doesn’t have to point it at them. It’s enough just for her to have it on her. When Allie isn’t confined to the girls’ dorm, she’s usually doing one punishment assignment or another. I could arrange it so she has to scrub pans that night. Ben Patchett works out the daily punishment details, but he lets me hand them out. So Allie collects all the pans from the kitchen and goes outside and finds the gun I’ve left for her. She’s waiting by the basement doors when Renée comes out with the prisoners. She’d have to be back by one A.M., too.”
Anxiety tickled Harper’s stomach. It seemed like there was a lot that could go wrong.
“What about Don Lewiston?” Harper said.
“He’s easy. He spends most of the night down along the water, tending to his fishing poles. No one minds him. He’s not under observation. He can meet you at the dock, row you across.”
“And you?” Harper asked. “Will you come, Michael? I’d like it if you were there. I think Allie would, too.”
He showed her a small, apologetic smile and gave his head a curt shake. “Nope. Better not. I’ll make sure I’ve been assigned guard duty here in the infirmary, so I can slip you out and cover for you while you’re gone. I don’t need to be a part of your conference, anyway. Allie can fill me in later.” He looked sidelong at Nick and said, “Take the kid, too. Bet he’d love to see his sister. And John.”
Harper said, “I’m fighting the urge to hug you very, very hard, Michael Lindqvist.”
“Why fight it?” he asked.
7
But in the end Nick didn’t want to go.
When the hour came, he was sitting in the worn-out chair beside Father Storey’s cot, reading a comic book: a man made of flame did battle with an enormous yellow-and-orange robot that resembled a walking Freightliner, headlights for eyes and shovels for hands. He said he wanted to stay with Tom.
“What if he wakes up and we’re gone?” Nick asked her in sign. “There ought to be someone here if he opens his eyes.”
“Michael will be here,” Harper said.
Nick shook his head, his face solemn. “That’s not the same.” Then he added, “Grandfather’s been moving a lot. He could wake up anytime.”
It was true. Sometimes Tom Storey took a deep breath and heaved a great, satisfied-sounding sigh . . . or he would produce a sudden humming noise, as if he had just had a quite surprising thought. Other times his right hand would drift up to rub his breastbone for a moment or two before falling back to his side. What Harper liked best was the way, sometimes, Tom would lift one finger to his lips, in the shh gesture, and smile. It was an expression that made Harper think of one child inviting another to share a hiding place during a game of hide-and-seek. Tom had been in his hiding place for months but maybe was almost ready to reveal himself.
Harper nodded, smoothed down Nick’s hair, and left him to the company of his comic book and the silent old man. Michael was in the waiting room . . . and Don Lewiston was with him, had turned up to escort Harper down to the water. Don wore a plaid winter coat and a cap with earflaps, and his nose was pink from the cold. He stood in the half-open door. Michael was on his feet, too, didn’t seem able to sit down, but instead paced the waiting area, twisting a Ranger Rick in his hands. The magazine was rolled into a tight, crooked tube.
“Nick’s not coming,” Harper said. “Maybe it’s just as well. If Ben Patchett comes by on a spot inspection, he won’t think anything of it if you tell him I’m napping. Us pregnant ladies sleep whenever they can. But if he doesn’t see any sign of me or Nick, that’s going to make him suspicious.” When she mentioned the possibility of a spot inspection, Michael seemed to visibly sicken, so much color leaving his face that even his lips looked gray. She wondered if he was having second thoughts, now that the moment had come. She asked, “How we doing?”
She was asking about Michael’s state of mind, but Don answered instead as if she had inquired about the evening’s acts of subterfuge. “The others are already on their way to the island. I met Allie and Renée in the woods with the prisoners. Chuck Cargill is shut into the meat locker. He hollered his head off and kicked the door a bunch of times, but Renée says after you get halfway across the basement, it just blends with the noise from upstairs in the cafeteria.”
“Go if you’re going,” Michael said. “I’ve got things covered here. You don’t have to worry, Ms. Willowes, and you don’t have to rush. I can cover for you until the shift change, just before the sun comes up. But those others don’t have much time. If the prisoners aren’t back across the water in forty-five minutes, we’re all cooked.”
Harper stepped toward Michael and put her hands on his, to make him stop twisting his Ranger Rick. She leaned in and kissed his cold, dry brow.