The Eternity Project

37



‘We’re here to see Earl Thomas and James Gladstone.’

Lopez spoke through the electronic voice system to the desk sergeant behind a Plexiglas-and-wire-mesh screen, as Ethan looked up at a bank of six television monitors wired to cameras in each of the nearby cell blocks.

It only took him a moment to see the medical teams dashing down one of the upper tiers, guards in uniforms standing back from an open cell as the medics dashed inside.

‘Looks like you’ve got some action on D Block,’ he warned the desk sergeant as he gestured to the monitor.

The sergeant looked up at it and frowned. ‘You say you’re here for Gladstone and Thomas? Well, that’s their cell.’

Ethan looked at Lopez, and she turned to the sergeant. ‘Get us in there, now!’

The doors rumbled open as Ethan and Lopez hurried through, two guards appearing as if from nowhere to escort them onto the block. The first thing that Ethan noticed was the silence as they walked, completely different to the catcalls, profanities and insults hurled at them on their previous visit. They reached the cell, where a loose knot of guards were staring at something within.

Ethan and Lopez stood on the cell-block tier and stared into the now-open cell.

‘Christ,’ Lopez uttered.

The walls of the cell were splashed with what looked like gallons of blood, sprayed in enormous crescents across the walls and soaking thickly into sheets already stained yellow with age.

Two bodies were being wheeled out of the cell in bags as a blood-pattern analyst stood in the cell door and looked at the carnage around him. It was a measure of the violence within Rikers Island that an analytically trained guard was a permanent member of the uniforms. Homicide was not uncommon, especially on wings that housed the more dangerous inmates. Ethan had the brief impression of a spectator at a gruesome art gallery admiring a masterpiece.

‘What do you make of it?’ Lopez asked.

The analyst shook his head slowly as he looked around the cell, careful not to step inside it.

‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ he uttered.

‘Looks like a particularly bad knife fight,’ Ethan said. ‘Are we looking at arterial-blood splatter here?’

The analyst slowly shook his head as he gestured to some of the wide arcs of blood stretching across the cell’s rear wall. ‘These patterns are consistent with arterial blood, but they’re far too broad and the splatter much too widely spaced to have come from severed arteries. These patterns are more consistent with a wounded body being hurled through the air.’

Ethan looked over his shoulder at the ranks of cells on the opposite side of the block. Dark faces were watching them in utter silence.

‘The convicts here are pretty spooked,’ Ethan observed.

‘We’ve got witnesses who say that the two men were murdered right here in front of the entire block,’ a nearby guard said. ‘The cell was locked, but that sheet obscured the interior from the view of most of the rest of the block.’

The analyst stared at the cell for a moment longer and then turned to them.

‘I saw the body of one of the victims before he was bagged,’ the analyst said. ‘What was left of him, anyway. He was a big man, maybe two-hundred fifty pounds. I saw the two survivors when they were being questioned, too. They couldn’t have been more than two-hundred fifty between them.’ He shook his head in apparent disbelief. ‘You want to tell me that they picked that guy up and spun him around in this cell violently enough to tear his head off ?’

Ethan looked at the bars of the cell. Amid the blood running down the bars and congealing in blackening puddles on the floor, he could see tufts of black hair and splinters of bone scattered across the floor of the cell.


‘There’s even small amounts of blood splatter down on the ground floor of the block,’ the analyst said. ‘The far side of the block. Whatever happened here must have been staged somehow. Maybe the guards were bribed to leave the doors unlocked and the whole block came in here, but then there would be clear evidence of their presence and that’s what’s freaking me the most right now.’

‘No forensics?’ Ethan hazarded.

‘I don’t know about forensic evidence here,’ the analyst said. ‘What I can tell you is that when I arrived here, the guards had kept the cell door locked to prevent any contamination of the scene. The other two men in the cell were huddled together on one of the beds, both of them crying like babies and staring at what was left of the two victims. Both of them were covered in blood, and the guards took that as evidence that they murdered their two cellmates. I can tell you that they couldn’t have.’

‘How can you be sure?’ Ethan asked.

The analyst pointed to the floor of the cell.

‘Because apart from the victim’s, there are no bloodied footprints on the floor. Whoever committed this crime did so without setting a foot on the ground.’

Ethan turned away from the cell with Lopez. ‘Let’s talk to the two survivors, see what they have to say.’

They were led by two guards to the North Infirmary, a low-risk ward where a duty nurse was attending to the two inmates as they sat side by side on a bed. Both were silent and still, staring into the distance.

‘Guys,’ Ethan said as he approached.

Both men flinched as though shot, their eyes flicking nervously up to meet his. ‘We din’ do it,’ one of them almost shouted at him. ‘We din’ do anythin’.’

Ethan raised his hands as Lopez took over.

‘We’re not here to charge you,’ she said. ‘Just tell us what happened, okay?’

The smaller of the two men shook his head. ‘They don’ believe us. We tol’ ’em everythin’ but they says we’re goin’ down for this.’

‘Nobody’s charging anybody just yet,’ Ethan assured them. ‘Just explain what happened.’

The older of the two men sucked in a quivering lungful of air before speaking.

‘Gladstone was pushin’ us around,’ he informed them. ‘Like usual. We were just mindin’ our business, like, when all a’sudden the other one, Earl, gets thrown up against the wall. Broke his leg. Then he’s up on the goddamned ceilin’, man, all writhin’ around, and, before we know what’s happened, he hits the cell gate and breaks his neck. Just falls to the ground, dead.’

Lopez nodded. ‘And the big guy, Gladstone?’

‘Tried to help Earl,’ said the smaller man, his eyes wet with tears that he made no effort to conceal. ‘Got himself f*cked up, too. Just floated right up into th’air and spun around like he was riding a bronco. Time it stopped, there was nothin’ left, man. He got smashed to pieces.’

Ethan turned at the sound of approaching footsteps, and saw Donovan stride into the infirmary. The chief paused, seeing the interview in full swing, and leaned against the infirmary door as he listened.

Ethan leaned in close to them, dropping his voice.

‘If the guards organized these murders, we can arrange to have you moved out so you can testify against them. This is your chance to come clean, fellas. You see any money change hands, any bribes, weapons, anything?’

Ethan had no power to pull the two men out of their cell block, although he suspected Jarvis could probably arrange it, if required. If the two men were covering up for a gang slaying or similar, they could get themselves a ticket out of Rikers Island right here and now. It would be like their every Christmas all on one day.

He saw the two men calculate briefly, and then almost in unison they shook their heads.

‘Man, there weren’t no bribes, and I ain’t just coverin’ here y’understand?’ said the older of the two. ‘There was nobody in that cell but the four of us, and we were sitting on the damned bunk watching Gladstone and Earl die, thinkin’ we were next. Jesus Christ, it was like they were killed by thin air.’

‘You notice anything else?’ Lopez asked. ‘Anything at all?’

‘Yeah,’ said the younger inmate. ‘It was cold, cold as hell. It ain’t never felt like that on the block.’

‘And the lights kept flickering out,’ said the other. ‘Like there was a disruption in the power supply or somethin’. Jesus, man, don’t let ’em send us back to that cell.’

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Ethan lied smoothly.

Ethan stood back and walked out of the infirmary with Lopez. Donovan joined them.

‘You want to tell me what the hell that’s all about?’

Ethan didn’t stop walking as he replied. ‘Everyone involved in the heist is being hunted, and not by a human being.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ Donovan uttered. ‘I’ve got a killer to catch and we need hard evidence to—’

‘Go talk to the convicts on that block,’ Lopez cut him off. ‘Couple of hundred hardened criminals stunned silent by what happened in that cell. You’ll get your evidence there. We’re going to keep a watch on Eric Muir. He’s likely to be a target.’