“I’m not leaving without Scott!”
Jamie had raised his voice and the Intake Officer turned anxiously towards the door, afraid that he might have been overheard. “Your brother was brought here a week ago,” he whispered, the words tumbling over each other. “I don’t go into the Block. I’m not allowed there. But sometimes I hear them talking and I know the names. He was here but he has gone again. They took him away.”
“When?”
“Just before you arrived.”
“Where? Where did they take him?”
Joe Feather cast his eyes down. “I don’t know. They wouldn’t tell me. All I can tell you is – he has gone.”
It was almost the worst news that Jamie could have heard. To have come so close! Scott had been here! If Jamie had arrived earlier, everything might have been different. But his brother had already gone. Nightrise could have taken him anywhere in the world. His search was about to begin all over again.
“If you want to find your brother, you must get out of this place,” Feather urged him. “You must do what I say. If you stay here, there is no hope.”
“Wait a minute…” Jamie tried to collect his thoughts. Everything was still happening too quickly. “Tell me about the Block,” he said. “That’s what you call the units on the other side of the wall, but what’s it for? How many kids are there locked up? What goes on over there?”
“Please.” Feather looked pained. But he could see that Jamie was determined. “Listen to me,” he whispered. “I’ve worked here only a few months. I don’t know what goes on. There are the boys in the main prison and there are the specials. There is something they call the Psi project. I don’t know what that means. And I don’t work in the Block. Sometimes I see things. I see names on lists. And I hear the other supervisors talking. But it was just a job for me until I saw you. Then I knew I had to act…”
“Why?”
“Because of the tattoo!” Feather couldn’t bear it any more. He went over to the door and looked out. But there was no one in the corridor. The other isolation cells were empty. The two of them were on their own. “I will tell you everything,” he promised. “But only when we are far from here.”
“All right.” Jamie could see there was no point arguing. And he had no desire to spend a minute more at Silent Creek, not if Scott had already gone. “But there is one thing,” he went on. “There’s a boy called Daniel McGuire.”
“McGuire…” Feather nodded. “Yes. I have seen that name.”
“He’s in the Block?”
“Yes.”
“He’s coming with me.” Feather opened his mouth to argue but Jamie didn’t give him time. “I’m only here because his mother helped me. I promised her. I can’t leave him behind.”
“But there is no way into the Block. There are cameras and guards…”
“You can help. You have to help me!”
The supervisor gritted his teeth, then nodded. “I’ll see what I can do. There is no more time to talk now. Mr Koring will arrive very soon. I will come for you when it gets dark. Then we will see.”
“I’m not going anywhere without Daniel.”
“I will do what I can.”
And then he was gone, leaving Jamie’s head spinning. He heard a faint click and realized that Feather had turned off the air-conditioning again. That made sense. If Max Koring looked in, he would have to see that Jamie was still suffering. The heat returned, an unwelcome blanket that completely smothered him. But he had a whole bottle of water inside him and the worst of the day was over. Jamie wished he had asked Feather the time, but he could only lie there, gazing at the rectangle of white glass, watching as the light softened and faded away. Eventually the evening came and then the night. The single light bulb, in a steel cage over the sink, flickered on automatically. Nobody had brought Jamie any food. Perhaps that was part of the punishment too… or a way of weakening him up for whatever was to come. He was beginning to get nervous. Had Joe Feather been discovered? Had he had second thoughts? He’d said he would come back when it was dark, and surely more than an hour had passed since the sun had set.
But it was much later when the door finally opened and the Intake Officer hurried in. He had Jamie’s trainers and a new T-shirt with him. He was also carrying another bottle of water. Jamie drank greedily while Joe talked. He wished the supervisor had thought to bring some food too.
“We must hurry,” he said. “Mr Koring has gone…”
“Where?”
“There’s a landing strip. A small plane. He’s picking up Mr Banes.”
Banes. It was the last name Jamie wanted to hear. He was instantly on his feet, pulling on the T-shirt, ready to go.
“My friends are close,” Feather went on. He glanced at his watch. “It is ten o’clock. At half past ten they will come. We must be ready by then.”
“What about Daniel?”
Feather took a small plastic bottle out of his pocket and unscrewed the cap. Jamie saw that it was filled with some sort of red syrup. “This contains chokecherry juice,” he explained. “It won’t harm you.” Before Jamie could stop him, he had squeezed it all over the side of Jamie’s face. Jamie put his hand to his skin and then examined his fingers. The juice looked exactly like blood. “I will take you to the medicine wing,” Feather said. “You must pretend you are hurt.” Jamie remembered what Baltimore had told him while they were having lunch. The medicine wing stood right up against the wall and served both sides of the prison. Now he understood what Feather was doing.
“The security cameras will see you,” Feather continued. “But the guards will see the blood and they won’t ask questions. There is nobody inside the medicine wing. In an emergency, they would expect me to call the nurses – but of course I won’t. We will be alone.”
“How do we get through to the Block?”
“Come now. I will tell you.”
The two of them left together. The juice had streaked all the way down the side of Jamie’s face and anyone watching him would assume that either he had been in a vicious fight or he had tried to kill himself. Joe Feather held onto him and, as they went down the empty corridor, Jamie staggered as if he could barely stand up. They came to a door which led out to the football pitch. Jamie already knew that none of the guards carried a key to this one. It could only be opened electronically from central control. He felt a camera high above, swivelling round to examine him. Would it work? Silence. Then a loud buzz and the lock clicked open. Joe helped him through. They were out!
It felt strange, crossing the football field in the artificial light of the arc lamps. The desert was pitch black. Tonight there was no moon. But the entire prison was a strange electric white, the razor-wire fence glittering all the way around the perimeter. Jamie could see the windows of the four units and thought of the boys he had met – Baltimore, Green Eyes, DV and the rest of them – and felt sorry that he was leaving them behind. They had made mistakes. They had done stupid things. But he had known them and he had thought none of them were really so bad.
The medicine wing rose up in front of them with the solid cinder-block wall stretching out behind. Joe Feather had a key to the door and he let Jamie in. They passed into a reception area with a desk and two small clinics leading off a narrow corridor behind. There was an eye chart on one wall, a couple of anti-drugs posters on the other. Jamie noticed another camera watching him from the corner. How could the two of them do anything when they were being followed all the time?
Joe Feather knelt down and pretended to examine his wound.
“The camera can see us but it can’t hear,” he whispered. “They will expect me to use the phone, to call the nurse. I will pretend to do that. You must take this…” Jamie felt something metallic being pressed into his hand. “This is the master key,” Feather continued. “It opens the cells in all four units: North, South, East and West. It should also open the cells in the Block, but I can’t be sure of that. If it doesn’t, there’s nothing more we can do.”