Authors: Alan Jacobson
“Hey yourself,” Robby said. “Sorry it took me so long to get back to you. That stakeout we were on turned into—”
“That’s okay,” Vail said. “It’s fine. No big deal.”
“You sound...stressed, for a change. Everything okay?”
Vail closed her eyes and took a breath. “I needed a favor and you’re the only one I can trust. I had to find out where an old partner was assigned.”
“This may sound like a really, really dumb question. But you’re an FBI agent. All you needed to do is—”
“First of all,” Vail said, “that’s not a question. But you’re right. It’s dumb. I could’ve picked up the goddamn phone and made that call myself.”
“You’re cursing. And you’re definitely stressed out. This isn’t good, is it?”
“No.”
“So what’s the deal? Why didn’t you want to make that call?”
“Robby. This isn’t helping.”
Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Talking about this is difficult enough. But over the phone...
“Sorry. I’m— I’ve only got a few minutes ’cause I’m still on that case and—”
The door opened and Dixon poked her head out. “You coming?”
Vail twisted the phone away from her mouth. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
The door closed and Vail turned her attention back to Robby.
“It’s not earth-shattering. It’s—it’s something I’d much rather tell you in person, not over a phone. But—”
“Yeah,” Robby said, his voice muffled. “I’ll be right there. Put him in a room. Give me a minute.” Then, back into the phone: “Karen. I don’t mean to be short. But get to the point. What do you need help with?”
Shit. I can’t bare my soul and summarize this under pressure. If it would make a difference in the case, I’d do it. But it won’t.
“It goes back to when I was a field agent in New York. But it’s a long story. It’ll have to wait.”
“You sure? Seems that it—whatever
it
is—is really bothering you. I can probably break away in a couple hours. Will that work? Are you in danger?”
“There’s really nothing you can do. I just wanted to talk things through. Besides, if the offender wanted to kill me, he could’ve done it already.”
“Jesus Christ, Karen. I definitely don’t like the sound of that. If your safety is—”
“Let’s not do this,” Vail said, pinching her forehead with two fingers. “I can take care of myself, you know that. Don’t worry about it.”
“Don’t worry about it?”
“I love you, Robby. I promise I’ll be okay.”
“Love you, too. But if I can help in any way, you call me. I’ll get someone to cover for me or—I’ll work something out.”
“You just started with DEA. I’m not going to jeopardize your job. I’ll be fine. Really. I’ll talk to you soon.”
She ended the call, then wondered what gave her the confidence to guarantee that all would be okay.
Who am I fooling?
Vail pushed back into the room and sat down beside Dixon in front of the screen, where urban scenes continued to roll by.
“Everything okay?” Dixon asked, keeping her gaze on the video.
“Yeah.”
No.
Though she knew the only person who could help her was Mike Hartman, she had desperately wanted to share the story with Dixon. But Vail was no longer in the mood to discuss it because it would require an explanation that she did not feel like getting into. She would be talking with Hartman soon enough. Then, if it turned out to be significant, she would brief everyone on the task force. Maybe that would bring them the break they had been looking for. Or maybe not.
The door swung open and Burden stuck his head in. “Pizza’s here—and we’re almost ready for the meeting.”
Dixon thanked him, then pressed Pause and the image froze. Vail almost screamed at the monitor.
What the hell am I missing?
July 19, 1961
Alcatraz
Walton MacNally marked off the days on loose-leaf sheets stored in a binder he kept in his cell, beside his now dog-eared picture of Henry. He had been told the salt air would eventually ruin the photo, but it’s the only one he had. And if their plan was successful, he would hopefully not be in his cell long enough for the corrosive environment to take its toll. Sitting beside his son on a dock, fishing, or shooting hoops, or fielding grounders... Was that too much to ask? Had the crimes he committed been so heinous that they needed to lock him away for decades? Prior to going to prison, he had never harmed anyone.
Just money. He just took money. And that wasn’t even his fault, not really.
Or was it? Was Voorhees right, that life was about choices, and he had made the wrong ones? Choices that led him to this point in time, in a penal colony locked away on an island in the middle of an ocean, living among the worst of the worst.
He had already been told about those who had called The Rock home before him—the likes of serial rapists, killers, mobsters. And then there were others like him, armed robbers and bank heist offenders. Kidnappers. Psychopaths and sociopaths.
This was not the life he had envisioned when the idea of stealing money from Township Community Savings came to him. It was, in effect, a life of imprisonment borne from a need to provide food and shelter for his son.
But he could almost put the past couple of years behind him if he broke out of here.
When
he broke out.
He looked up from his reverie, standing behind his bars, waiting for the count to be finished so he could grab breakfast with Morris, Anglin, and Carnes. Anglin’s brother, Clarence, had arrived on The Rock a few months ago with instructions that he not cell with his brother. At least, that’s what Clarence said he overheard the officer telling the marshal during the handoff at the airport in Kansas City.
Thing was, despite Alcatraz’s stringent rules, well-behaving inmates were largely given the freedom to choose where they wanted to live. With somewhere around seventy-five cells unoccupied at any one time at the penitentiary, it was common for convicts to move around from time to time—often as friendships and alliances developed.
But an apparent breakdown in communication on the part of institution leadership led to Anglin taking a cell adjacent to his brother’s.
That fact facilitated the Anglins’ drilling out their ventilation grilles with greater ease as they were able to hand tools from one to the other. While one worked, the other maintained a lookout with the assistance of foil fastened to a stick, serving as an offset mirror that could be inserted through the bars as an early warning system against advancing officers, whose crepe-soled shoes concealed their approach.
During the past three months, the men had been honing the details of their plan, gathering materials and assembling their tools. While Carnes decided to drop out of the group due to doubts they would be successful, the others became increasingly convinced they could pull it off.
MacNally requested a job in the glove factory, which gave him access to the industrial sewing machines they were going to need for constructing the life preservers and rafts. Although he had thought the
Popular Mechanics
“rubber geese” article was mere folly, when he saw the magazine and read the instructions, he realized that its method of vulcanizing the rubber, by heating it, could easily be applied to a much larger flotation device.
As it turned out, Morris’s estimate of fifty rubber-backed rain garments was on the mark. They had sufficient time to obtain them, if they each participated. A general population inmate showered twice weekly; afterwards, they were handed freshly laundered clothing, towels, and bedsheets. Anglin, working in the clothing room, would slip each of the men two raincoats, which they would take back to their cell.
They also arranged for other prisoners to assist. Because of the seagull population on the island, cons often wore their rainwear to the rec yard as protection against falling bird poop. Their conspirators would wear their extra coat when they went outside, peel off the smuggled one and hand it over to Morris, West, MacNally, or the Anglins, who would put it on over their own.
For all their ingenious planning, they were presented with a daunting challenge that stumped them for a time: where to stash their wares while they awaited either assembly or implementation. West came up with a solution: he had heard that the officers were talking about painting the cellhouse—and he knew that A-Block, a remnant from Alcatraz’s history as a Civil War fort and military detention facility, was used primarily for storage because its flat bars had never been replaced with the hardened tool-proof steel rods that now adorned the B-, C-, and D-block cells. Squirreling away their ill-gotten possessions under a paint tarp in A-Block would be ideal cover.
West fabricated a story of having once painted houses for a builder, and thus he knew his way around with a brush and roller. He would be willing to take on the job of recoating the entire cellhouse and kitchen areas. From the warden’s perspective, the man who had been a pain in the ass to the staff since his arrival three years ago was asking for an opportunity to do something productive—a long-term task that the captain of the guards outwardly joked might keep him out of trouble.
MacNally pointed out that should West be given the job painting the cellhouse, not only would it provide them clandestine storage space, but it would give them access to the mint-colored paint they needed for wall touch-up each night to conceal the holes they were making around their ventilation grilles.
But carving holes in the cement was tedious work that required them to work after lights out for hours at a time, always exercising care not to drop their tools—heavy-gauge steel spoons they had smuggled out of the dining hall. With few exceptions, because inmates were prevented from having metal objects in their possession, the signature clank of metal on concrete in a prison facility stood out like a gunshot in a kindergarten class.
Now, as MacNally lined up with the rest of the workforce in the recreation yard, he felt the morning mist from a dense fog prickling his cheeks. It made him feel alive. The whistle blew and the men began moving through the steel door that swung open in the middle of the tall cement wall. From that vantage point, as he looked down the steep set of dozens of concrete stairs, he saw the trail of workers headed to the Industries entrance directly below him.
To the far right, beyond that structure, stood the old three-story Model Industries that housed all the prison’s industrial infrastructure until 1940, when it was deemed an escape risk after a number of cons had gotten out of the building and made their way to the adjacent water’s edge. Since the new factory had opened, the former facility remained vacant, though it served as the support base for the Model Tower, a guard lookout and catwalk that provided officers with a birds-eye view of that side of the island.
Ahead of MacNally, for those inmates who dared look, was the Golden Gate Bridge, a majestic span that reached from the city to his left across the Bay, to the tony community of Marin on his right. Each time the prisoners left the rec yard for their work detail, the postcard-perfect view of the city and bridge served as a powerful reminder of a vibrant life they were missing.
MacNally walked through Industries’ second story doors and onto the shop floor. It was densely packed, with endless rows of machines and work tables, where inmates manufactured various products in the glove, brush, and tailor shops, and the furniture and wood-working factories.
Circular columns rose regularly across the floor, and tall sectional windows along the left wall brought a gray luminosity into the building. Pipes and wire conduits crisscrossed the ceiling, hanging down alongside single-bulb light fixtures that supplied readily available electrical outlets for the trade-specific machines such as drill presses, saws, specialized cutting tools, routers, and sanders.
Officers stood watch throughout the expansive, rectangular interior. Along the right wall, a guard’s catwalk stretched the length of the building, patrolled by men with Winchester rifles slung over their shoulders and tear-gas guns at the ready.
MacNally took his place at the assigned station, where a long, thick bobbin of heavy gauge thread sat to his right, already spooled into the machinery, just as he had left it yesterday. He began the task of slicing the raw material canvas and leather sections that would then be cut into templates and sewn into gloves.
As MacNally reached into the bin to his left, he saw a blur coming at him out of the extreme periphery of his vision. He instinctively flinched and curled away as something razor sharp sliced into his side. He was body slammed toward the cold cement floor, but his hip struck the worktop on his way down, flipping him onto his back and spilling his metal glove-making tools all around him.
That’s when he saw Harlan Rucker bringing up a glistening knife, about to plunge it into his chest.
“FUCK YOU!” RUCKER YELLED AS he arced his weapon through the air.
MacNally kicked up his knee, catching Rucker’s forearm and deflecting the blow. He slapped at the floor with his feet, trying to get up, or get away—but his leather soles kept slipping on the slick cement.
MacNally yelled, then flailed his left hand along his side, trying to grab something—anything—to defend himself. But his palm brushed clumsily against round tools, scattering them from his reach.
Rucker again jabbed the knife toward him, but MacNally twisted away and it struck the hard concrete floor. The impact sent the weapon skittering out of Rucker’s hand. He dove sideways to gather it up, giving MacNally room to move.
Off to his right—a cold metal rod. He wrapped his fingers around it and whipped it toward Rucker.
The clunk of steel-on-steel reverberated throughout the room as Rucker’s knife flew from his hand.
Rucker yelped, his hand paralyzed, likely fractured.
In the distance, shouts echoed from guards.
Again, MacNally swung his rod—
violently
hard and
fast
Then a thud—metal against bone.
And Rucker went down.
MacNally got to his knees and brought his weapon back—winding up for a full swing—then slammed it against the asshole’s shoulder, then his cheek, then his nose, and then—