Alex looked at Tyree. "I know he's your brother, but all that going on right next door and you never did anything about it?"
"That's another reason Howard and me aren't close. Who do you think turned Amnesty International on to the place?"
"You?" said Caleb.
"I went up there once on a prisoner transport. Poked around a bit when nobody was watching me. I guess my big brother thought I could be trusted. Stuff I saw, heard. Yeah, I called it in. Howard found out later. That was the official end of our brotherly love and I haven't been invited back to Blue Spruce since."
"Let's just call the place by its real name, okay?" said Annabelle sternly. "Dead Rock!"
"With all that stuff how come the Justice Department or the Civil Rights Division hasn't opened an investigation then?" said Harry Finn. "Or at least the Virginia Department of Corrections?"
Caleb looked at his notes. "Apparently, the current state and federal administrations don't have the rights of prisoners as a priority. There was talk of a state inquiry but it went nowhere, and the Justice Department has nothing pending. And for the last two years the prison has been more or less shut down to all visitors."
"So Howard Tyree has his own personal little fiefdom and can do what he wants. Including selling drugs," growled Reuben. "And holding innocent men."
"Looks that way," said Caleb.
"What about the mineshaft?" asked Annabelle.
"I did find some info on that," Caleb answered as he pulled out some pages he'd printed off at the library. "It was cut on a parallel course to the shaft the miners were trapped in. I read a couple newspaper articles about it and then compared it to records I was able to access about the prison construction. I can't be certain, mind you, because it's not like they publish the blueprints for supermax prisons online. But it seemed to me that that rescue shaft ran all the way up that ridge because that's where the miners were trapped. When the explosion happened it collapsed the tunnel the trapped miners were in, but the rescue tunnel survived. I know that because the other miners were able to get out okay. It says that the mine was sealed up at the entrance, but it doesn't say anything about the rescue shaft entrance."
Reuben said, "But if you build a supermax on top of a mine and you know there's a shaft running underneath, you sure as hell are going to plug it up."
"Plug it up, sure, but maybe in a way that allows you to unplug it," replied Annabelle as she paced the room in front of them.
"Howard was involved in the construction planning, that I know," said Tyree. "It would be just like him to allow himself some flexibility."
"But why would anybody do that?" asked Alex. "Prisoners could escape that way."
Annabelle turned around to face him. "From what Caleb has been telling us about Blue Spruce, there's no way that escape is that serious of an issue. Every prisoner is kept segregated, and then shackled and searched when they need to take a leak. There are almost as many guards as cons, and they only get one hour out of their cells a day. The setup is perfect for a drug-dealing operation that requires some of his men to routinely leave the prison in the middle of the night to take care of business."
"But if some of the guards are involved why wouldn't they just leave from their houses?" asked Caleb.
"Howard Tyree sounds like a real control freak to me. He'd want every man right under his thumb."
"You're right about that," agreed Tyree.
"If these shipments come in routinely to the courthouse with some of the boxes diverted, where do you think those boxes are going?" asked Alex.
"To the prison," answered Tyree simply. "It's easy enough. Prisons get deliveries every day of food, supplies."
Alex added, "And the courthouse records filings are a great way to ship the drugs. DEA or ICE agents would just let it right on by."
"So they make the switch somewhere en route," reasoned Annabelle, "and the diverted boxes go to the prison until they're ready to be shipped out using addicted miners as couriers. Which brings me back to my point. You're not going to have a bunch of guards walk out the front door every night with boxes of illegal pills. And you can't fly the chopper out every night, because people will start wondering."
Harry said, "So you go out the back door."
"You go out the back door," echoed Annabelle. "Which I believe is that mineshaft."
Alex looked at her incredulously. "So we're going to find this mineshaft entrance, get in somehow, even though it's been sealed, and then somehow make it through there alive? And then break into a supermax prison where there are guards armed to the teeth and who also happen to be drug dealers?"
"Sounds like a plan," said Reuben eagerly.
"It sounds like suicide," shot back Alex.
"Actually," said Annabelle, "you're both wrong."
CHAPTER 76
"I SWEAR IF IT'S the last thing I ever do, I'm going to kill Macklin Hayes," Knox muttered to Stone. The two men were back in their cell and many hours had passed since Hayes had come to put the proverbial nail in their coffins.
"But that would be against the law. And people will come and hunt you down and put you away," said Stone, as he peered out the slit the prison called a window. It overlooked the front parking lot but it was very difficult to see through because of the opaqueness of the window covering attached to the bars.
"Yeah, I realize the irony, trust me, but I'm still going to do it."
"If we get out of here."
"Yeah, I also realize the impossibility of that at the moment."
"I think you might be wrong about that."
Knox sat up. "Really?"
"Don't get your hopes up. It's for a bad reason, not a good one."
"What are you saying?"
"Have you noticed that ever since Hayes left they haven't bothered to feed us or let us out of the cell?"
"Yeah, my stomach is reminding me of that pretty much every second. So?"
"So that tells me that our stay here is coming to an end."
"Don't waste food on corpses? How unlike our esteemed warden."
"There's no reason to keep us here any longer. There's always a chance that someone might show up and search the place. Why risk it?"
"Where do you think they'll take us?"
"I know from firsthand experience that there are abandoned mines around here. A drop down an old shaft, seal it back up. Apparently people up here are used to dead men being inside these mountains. That's how this place got its name, in fact."
Stone pressed his face against the wall, trying to wedge it between the edges of the slit so he could see out better. He squinted and could see the outline of the mountains in the distance. They might as well have been on Mars. Three feet of concrete, a hundred yards of open space, killer wire and a battalion of snipers with aggressive trigger fingers was all that stood between them and freedom.
No way out.
Knox said, "You get into this business you know any day your number could come up. And you deal with that. But you keep going because it's your job, a job you swore to do to the best of your ability. Serve your country to the end."
"Or until your country screws you," amended Stone.
"When I was assigned to come after you, I really didn't know what to expect. I knew you were a dangerous guy but figured you'd just gone bad like some do. But the more I found out… Well, if anyone ever deserved an apology from his country, you sure as hell do."