Then there was the sound, which was almost as bad as the smell. Everywhere cackles and shouts and cries. The noise became even louder as they crossed into the first block.
Cells lined both sides of the concrete walkway, each with a number above. While most of the barred doors were open and the cells beyond empty, a few were closed with three, four, even five prisoners looking out from inside. The moment the occupants caught sight of Alex, they began to howl and scream. They banged plates and cups against the bars and underlined the racket with piercing whistles.
The noise crescendoed as Alex and her guards moved from one block to the next. At the back end of the first floor was a tired-looking wooden staircase. Alex scowled as she was led onto it. She had seen another stairwell at the front of the building, but apparently the guards had wanted to show her off to as many prisoners as possible. A scare tactic that probably worked on ninety-five percent of the people they brought through.
They passed the second floor and went all the way up to the third. There, they proceeded to the block in the middle and stopped in front of cell 185. It was one of those with the door closed. Inside were three prisoners. While they had been yelling it up like the others when Alex first stepped into their block, they were silent now, staring warily out at her.
The lead guard turned to a camera mounted in the ceiling and gave it a wave. Almost immediately, a loud buzz cut through the din. The guard grabbed one of the bars and pulled the cell door open.
Standing aside, he said something to Alex and pointed inside.
Knowing she could show no weakness, she walked straight in as if she’d been living there for years. The buzz sounded again, the door closed behind her—
— and there she was.
Home.
There were four beds in the room, split between two bunks butted head to toe along the same wall. Though none looked particularly comfortable, all four appeared to be claimed, which meant someone was hoarding space. Having no idea which was the extra, Alex decided to claim the one she wanted — the bottom bunk, nearest the front of the cell.
As she swept the belongings atop it to the floor, the largest of her three cellmates yelled out and shoved Alex’s shoulder. Instead of fighting back, Alex pushed the complainer to the side and sat down on the mattress.
The woman yelled again, grabbed Alex’s arm, and yanked it. Alex let her shoulder roll forward, then snapped back, jerking the woman toward her. She planted her free hand on the woman’s clavicle and gave it a small, upward nudge right before her attacker reached the bed. The change in trajectory was more than enough to send her new roommate’s forehead crashing into the frame of the upper bunk.
The woman staggered backward, stunned, blood trickling down the bridge of her nose. Alex popped to her feet, knowing she needed to finish this before the other two women decided to join in. Grabbing her rival by the hair, she dragged the woman kicking and screaming to the other lower bunk and pushed her onto the mattress.
Without a word, she returned to her own bunk, climbed on, and stretched out.
The other two women were pressed against the wall near the bars, watching her with a mix of fear and awe.
“Problem?” Alex asked.
The mousier of the two shook her head. “No,” she said. “No problem.” Her accent was more German than Ukrainian.
“Good.” Alex squirmed around until she was comfortable. “I assume you wouldn’t mind if I took a little nap?”
“Of course not,” Mousy said.
“I’d advise you to make sure your buddy there doesn’t try to take advantage while I’m out. I’m hell full of mean if someone wakes me up before I’m ready.”
Mousy hesitated. “Yes. Yes, I will let her know.”
“I appreciate it.”
Alex closed her eyes, and though she hadn’t planned to fall asleep, she did.
Chapter Fourteen
Cooper lowered his binoculars. “Well, she’s in,” he said.
Deuce lowered his own set a moment later, frowning. “Yep.”
They were lying on the crest of a hill, overlooking the prison from half a mile away. They had just watched Alex being escorted into the building.
“You’d better let the boss man know,” Deuce said.
Cooper nodded, pulled out his phone, and fired off a text:
INSERTION COMPLETE
The reply came back within seconds.
ACKNOWLEDGED
“So what now?” Deuce asked.
“Now we wait.”
As she had done on each of the three previous days since her arrival, the assassin took careful note of any new arriving prisoners, just in case El-Hashim had been able to smuggle in more help.
The woman had already surrounded herself with three bodyguards. And while the assassin knew she could take care of them with very little effort, the time it would take could be problematic. Any delay might give El-Hashim a chance to escape or, worse, get the attention of the guards who might stop the assassin before she reached her target.
No matter how she proceeded, failure was not an option. She had to be a hundred percent sure that this assignment concluded with the death of El-Hashim, and that the assassin herself wasn’t caught in the process.
As on the previous days, none of the new prisoners made a beeline for the cellblock where El-Hashim had holed up, so it was still just the three bodyguards. In fact, the only unusual thing about this day’s arrivals was a woman who appeared to be from North America.
The assassin mentally filed away the woman’s face, along with the others she’d noted that day, just in case any of them popped back up on her radar. Information was key to her job, and she never missed an opportunity to gather what she could.
Her task completed for the day, she set her mind back on the more important matter at hand.
The demise of Fadilah El-Hashim.
Chapter Fifteen
When the buzzer sounded, Alex came awake, her muscles tense.
For a split second, she wondered why a mattress was hanging a few feet above her. Then she remembered. She wasn’t home. This wasn’t her bedroom.
This was prison.
And the sound she’d heard hadn’t been an alarm.
Her cellmates were shuffling past her bunk, giving her wary looks as they headed for the cell door. Alex twisted around and saw it was open.
“What’s going on?” she asked Mousy.
The girl looked at her as if she’d rather not answer, but said meekly, “Night check.” A pause. “If you don’t want problem, you’ll come, too.”
Alex crawled out of her bunk and followed the others into the common area in the middle of their cellblock. All the other doors were also open, the inmates forming two parallel lines, each facing the cells they’d just left.
Alex’s cellmates fell into the line side by side, spreading themselves out just enough so that there was no room for her. They were probably hoping she’d go down to the end of the line, where she’d undoubtedly be disciplined for being out of position. Instead, she forced her way between Mousy and the woman she’d taken the bunk from.
“Thanks,” she said with a smile.
Her sparring partner muttered something under her breath that Alex didn’t need translated to understand. She ignored it.
All conversation and movement in the room suddenly stopped. Silence reigned for nearly a minute, until the block door opened and five male guards piled in.
Their gender didn’t surprise Alex. She knew that, even in the US, the majority of prison guards were male, and not necessarily restricted to inmate processing when it came to female prisoners. Back home, many women inmates were left to the unchecked mercy of their male captors, and it obviously wasn’t any different in Ukraine.