“There is no question,” the governor went on briskly, “about the propriety of her being there she was duly convicted of a felonious act, namely conspiracy and incitement to riot. But you see the position.”
The warden saw. All too well the warden saw.
“Therefore,” said the governor, “I intend to go in to Block 0 myself. Sebastian Bradley is an old and personal friend as well,” he emphasized, “as being a senior member of the Reclassification Board. I understand a medic is going to Block 0. I shall go with him.”
The warden managed to sit up straight. “He’s gone. I mean they already left. Governor. But I assure you. Miss BradInmate Bradleythat is, the young lady is in no danger. I have already taken precautions,” he said, gaining confidence as he listened to himself talk. “I, uh, I was deciding on a course of action as you came in. See, Governor, the guards on the walls are all armed. All they have to do is fire a couple of rounds into the Yard and then the copters could start dropping tear gas and light fragmentation bombs and”
The governor was already at the door. “You will not,”
he said; and, “Now, which way did they go?”
O’Leary was in the Yard, and he was smelling trouble, loud and strong.
The first he knew that the rest of the prison had caught the riot fever was when the lights flared on in Cell Block A. “That Sodaro!” he snarled; but there wasn’t time to worry about that Sodaro. He grabbed the rest of his guard detail and double-timed it toward the New Building, leaving the medic and a couple of guards walking sedately toward the Old. Block A, on the New Building’s lowest tier was already coming to life; a dozen yards, and Blocks B and C lighted up.
And a dozen yards more, and they could hear the yelling; and it wasn’t more than a minute before the building doors opened.
The cons had taken over three more blocks. How?
O’Leary didn’t take time even to guess. The inmates were piling out into the Yard. He took one look at the rushing mob. Crazy! It was Wilmer Lafon leading the rioters, with a guard’s gun and a voice screaming threats! But O’Leary didn’t take time to worry about an honor prisoner gone bad, either. “Let’s get out of here!” he bellowed to the detachment, and they ran… .
Just plain ran. Cut and ran, scattering as they went.
“Wait!” screamed O’Leary, but they weren’t waiting.
Cursing himself for letting them get out of hand, O’Leary salvaged two guards and headed on the run for the Old Building, huge and dark, all but the topmost lights of Block 0. They saw the medic and his escort disappearing into the bulk of the Old Building; and they saw something else. There were inmates between them and the Old Building! The Shops Building lay between with a dozen more cell blocks over the workshops that gave it its name and there was a milling rush of activity around its entrance, next to the laundry shed.
The laundry shed.
O’Leary stood stock still. Lafon talking to the laundry cons; Lafon leading the break-out from Block A. The little greaser who was a trusty in the Shops Building sabotaging the Yard’s tangler circuit. Sauer and Flock taking over the Green Sleeves with a manufactured knife and a lot of guts. Did it fit together? Was it all part of a plan?
That was something to find outbut not just then.
“Come on,” O’Leary cried to the two guards, and they raced for the temporary safety of the main gates.
The whole prison was up and yelling now.
O’Leary could hear scattered shots from the beat guards on the wall. Over their heads, over their heads! he prayed silently. And there were other shots that seemed to come from inside the walls guards shooting, or convicts with guards’ guns, he couldn’t tell which. The Yard was full of convicts now, in bunches and clumps; but none near the gate. And they seemed to have lost some of their drive.
They were milling around, lit by the searchlights from the wall, yelling and making a lot of noise … but going nowhere in particular. Waiting for a leader, O’Leary thought, and wondered briefly what had become of Lafon.
“You Captain O’Leary?” somebody demanded.
O’Leary turned and blinked. Good Lord, the governor!
He was coming through the gate, waving aside the gate guards, alone. “You him?” the governor repeated. “All right, glad I found you. I’m going in to Block 0 with you!”
O’Leary swallowed, and waved at the teeming cons.
True, there were none immediately nearby but there were plenty in the Yard! Riots meant breaking things up; already the inmates had started to break up the machines in the laundry shed and the athletic equipment in the Yard lockers; when they found a couple of choice breakables like O’Leary and the Governor they’d have a ball! “But Governor”
“But my foot! Can you get me in there or can’t you?”
O’Leary gauged their chances. It wasn’t more than fifty feet to the main entrance to the Old Buildingnot at the moment guarded, since all the guards were in hiding or on the walls, and not as yet being invaded by the inmates at large.
He said, “You’re the boss! Hold on a minute” The searchlights were on the bare Yard cobblestones in front of them; in a moment the searchlights danced away.
“Come on!” cried O’Leary, and jumped for the entrance. The governor was with him, and a pair of the guards came stumbling after.
They made it to the Old Building.
Inside the entrance they could hear the noise from outside and the yelling of the inmates who were still in their cells; but around them was nothing but gray steel walls and the stairs going up to Block 0. “Up!” panted O’Leary, and they clattered up the steel steps.
They nearly made it.
They would have made it if it hadn’t been for the honor inmate, Wilmer Lafon, who knew what he was after and had headed for the Green Sleeves through the back way. In fact, they did make it but not the way they planned. “Get out of the way!” yelled O’Leary at Lafon and the half-dozen inmates with him; and “Go to hell!” screamed Lafon, charging; and it was a rough-and-tumble fight, and O’Leary’s party lost it, fair and square.
So when they got to Block 0 it was with the governor marching before a convict-held gun, and with O’Leary cold unconscious, a lump from a gun-butt on the side of his head.
As they came up the stairs, Sauer was howling at the medic: “You got to fix up my boy! He’s dying, and all you do is sit there!”
The medic said patiently, “My son, I’ve dressed his wound. He is under sedation, and I must rest. There will be other casualties.”
Sauer raged, and he danced around; but that was as far as it went. Even Sauer wouldn’t attack a medic! He would as soon strike an Attorney, or even a Director of Funerals.
It wasn’t merely that they were professionals even among the professional class, they were special; not superior, exactly, but apart. They certainly were not for the likes of Sauer to fool with, and Sauer knew it.
“Somebody’s coming!” cried one of the other freed inmates.
Sauer jumped to the head of the steps, saw that Lafon was leading the group, stepped back, saw who Lafon’s helpers were carrying, and leaped forward again. “Cap’n O’Leary!” he roared. “Gimme!”
“Shut up,” said Wilmer Lafon, and pushed the big redhead out of the way. Sauer’s jaw dropped, and the snake eyes opened wide.
“Wilmer,” he protested feebly. But that was all the protest he made, because the snake’s eyes had seen that Lafon held a gun. He stood back, the big hands half out-stretched toward the unconscious guard captain, O’Leary, and the cold eyes became thoughtful.
And then he saw who else was with the party. “Wilmer!” he roared. “You got the governor there!”
Lafon nodded. “Throw them in a cell,” he ordered, and sat down on a guard’s stool, breathing hard. It had been a fine fight on the steps, before he and his boys had subdued the governor and the guards; but Wilmer Lafon wasn’t used to fighting. Even six years in the Jug hadn’t turned an architect into a laborer; physical exertion simply was not his metier.