50
A
perpetual stream of nerves and second-guessing stretched the week interminably. Friday night was the longest of all. Shan tossed restlessly in his bunk as bouts of rain and wind alternated over the island. The foghorn moaned through the dark. For the hundredth time, the plan replayed in his head.
At the morning bell, he rose and followed the routine. He dressed and tidied his cell, ate and showered, and traded in his weekly laundry. All while hoping each step would be his last within the gray walls of Alcatraz.
Finally he was escorted through the thin afternoon fog, his cap lowered in the rain. When he entered the warden’s greenhouse, his gaze went straight to the potato barrel, a habit now. On Monday, he’d added two tires from the rubber mat shop, where cons converted used tires into mats for the Navy. The expanded stack still held potatoes and dirt, but with the burlap bag at its core.
Though the barrel looked untouched since the prior day, he reached down into the soil regardless. He breathed easier at the ridged outline of the raft.
Now for the last component.
In Sadie’s corner, he slid away the pots. There it was, just as she had promised. The large bundle was wrapped in brown paper. With hands dampened from rain, he moved it to the counter and untied the string. The hard-billed cap sat atop a small pile of folded garments: a uniform jacket with shirt and tie, finely pressed trousers, and a hooded raincoat.
“I know he won’t notice,” Sadie had said of her father’s spare uniform. “He’s got more.” She’d volunteered the idea after confirming her conclusions ultimately were right: Shan was going to flee. He had wavered on the admission when she’d pressed the issue again, unrelenting, desperate, too wise not to know. In the end, torn by the girl’s sufferings, Shan didn’t have the heart to lie.
For days he scoured his brain for any other way to help her. After all, there was no guarantee they could find her mother. Or that her father would rest until Sadie was found.
But the fact remained: the girl didn’t deserve to spend her life like an animal in a cage. Nor did Shan really, though he had forgotten for a time. Still, including her in the plan was ludicrous. The increased risks they would be taking. Maybe reporters were right about Alcatraz turning cons insane.
The faint giggles of children turned him.
Outside, excitement was brewing. The annual Halloween party drew every family on the island to an evening at the Officers’ Club. In just hours, festive sounds were sure to distract the handful of guards on duty; the weekends always reduced a need for security. And who at the party, amid the chaos and cloaks of costumes, would notice one missing child?
Between regular counts, Shan made the few preparations he could, always mindful of the clock on the counter. Absently he cared for the plants. Yesterday in the warden’s house, he had peeked at the
San Francisco Chronicle
. For an escape, the weekend projection of light rain and fog meant additional cover without obscuring the landing. Ideal conditions.
But as the hours eked by, he noted a warning in the clouds. The air smelled of electricity. Wind gusts rattled the walls. A storm was looming.
On the cusp of evening, he parked the pushcart just outside the door. An early darkness was setting in, accelerated by a dome of fog. The moon had vanished. Vessels would stay docked in these conditions, reducing his odds of being spotted in the bay. But would Fort Point be entirely shrouded by the time he shoved off? There was no way to know.
He loaded the cart with baskets of dangling bougainvillea. Unless searched, they would effectively hide the canvas tarp. He had obtained the material from the model shop, an aid for passage over the barbwire. Hopefully it would be enough.
Back inside, he returned to the stacked tires, garden trowel in hand. Sweat moistened his grip. This was it. Once he scooped out the dirt and retrieved the bag, there would be no going back. Already he felt perched on the edge of a cliff.
Suddenly a man shouted orders outside. “You two check the docks. We’ll take the lighthouse.” It was the voice of Warden Johnston, competing with rainfall and howling wind. “The rest of you spread out.”
Shan strained to see through the water-streaked panes. He made out figures of off-duty guards and teenage sons. They were divvying up territory, organizing a hunt.
The white beam of a searchlight swept past the greenhouse. Over and over Shan had envisioned this happening—but only after he was gone. His pulse quickened and his lungs cinched. It all felt surreal; he was a fugitive on the run, the bandit in
Mark of Zorro.
But then logic took hold. The search wasn’t for him. He hadn’t even left his detail, and they would certainly know where to find him. Could it be for another con? Had Ralph and Ted managed to break out of the cell house? The absence of a siren discounted the notion.
Raindrops pelted the ceiling, growing insistent. Tapping, tapping.
“Eh! Capello!”
His heart jumped. Leavenworth had taught him to stay keenly alert, a vital skill for survival, but somehow he’d missed the creak of the door.
He tightened his hold on the trowel before turning around. It was Finley, staring with his ferret-like eyes.
“Yeah, boss?”
“You seen a little girl pass by? Ten years old, light brown hair. About so high?”
Shan’s stomach knotted. The reply had to sound natural, as steady as letting out fishing line. “No, sir. I’m afraid I haven’t.”
From the entry step, Finley scanned the area with an edge of discomfort. He wasn’t a fan of the rare freedoms enjoyed by passmen. “Aren’t you about done here?”
“Sure am. Then I’ll be heading to the lower greenhouse to finish up.”
Finley lingered a bit—gauging, questioning—before he gave a small nod and turned to leave. When the door slammed, Shan’s fingers tingled from adrenaline, tinged by fear. They weren’t supposed to know she was missing—not yet. He hadn’t figured on a search until his own absence triggered the alarm.
Once more, the potential consequences flickered through his mind. The dungeons, a beating, a bullet to the head. It wasn’t too late to turn back. He could serve out his sentence by sticking to the grind, and one distant day walk out a free man.
But, no. No, it wasn’t that easy. Not anymore. He recalled how Sadie had embraced him when he agreed to take her along, how she had cried as she whispered her thanks. And with that, any chance of reneging crumbled.
Through the fog, lightning cracked the sky. It cast an eerie blue glow over the warden’s house, like a searchlight from above. The similarity conjured a thought.
They would be looking on the south end of the island, the civilian areas. The gymnasium, the parade grounds. They wouldn’t suspect where she had gone.
They could do this.
The plan could still work.
So long as they never found the girl.
Shan transferred the cart. He reported for count. And now the minutes were ticking.
In the lower greenhouse, he turned on the overhead light bulb to prevent suspicion. The Powerhouse Tower guard wouldn’t have a clear view into the room, but still Shan retreated to a back corner before removing and hiding his prison cap, coat, and coveralls. The guard uniform underneath, which he had donned an hour ago, was fully ready minus the raincoat and hat. He threw them both on.
The windows offered a faint reflection of his appearance. The whole uniform was a tad large, but he had no time to worry about that. He hurried back outside to the cart, set on the far side of the greenhouse. With no one in sight, he pulled out the burlap bag, now also concealing the tarp.
Steeling himself, he embarked on a walk guaranteed to be the longest of his life. The bag swayed in the wind, bumping hard against his leg. Though he assumed an air of authority, he kept his hat lowered under his hood, not unnatural given the weather. He fixed his gaze on the model building, his first destination. Thrashing waves echoed from the shore. The foghorn continued to moan.
From the Powerhouse Tower, the guard would have noticed his presence by now. More than eighty officers rotated shifts and stations every week. From a distance Shan’s average build could fit one of many. He told himself this as he continued his strides, fighting the thought of a guard’s finger on a trigger, taking easy aim.
Keep going. Walk with purpose.
He was halfway there.
Cyclone wire and fencing waited ahead. The guard in the Model Tower, atop the industries building, was typically gone at this hour. But the officer in the Hill Tower stood at his post. His large shadow loomed above in the glass enclosure.
A gust of icy wind stalled Shan for a moment, causing him to gasp. Yet he forged on, determined not to stop. No longer an inmate, he was an officer assigned to drop off supplies.
Just fifty feet left now—and half as many minutes. It took all his willpower not to break into a sprint. He could hear his own breathing, a hoarse rhythm in his ears.
The Hill Tower guard appeared to be facing the other way. Still no sign of an officer on the roof.
Shan briskly navigated his way to the fence behind the mat shop. There, he savored the reprieve from a tower guard’s view. In seconds he found the locked gate through which cons discarded unneeded tire parts. It was the meeting spot he and Sadie had agreed upon. So where was the girl?
“Sadie,” he whispered through the rain.
If she didn’t show, would he be leaving without her?
She’d been so confident about reaching the place, having explored many areas deemed off-limits, though not always of her choosing. Since the warden prohibited booze, she’d explained, Yappy had occasionally tasked her with dumping the empties in the water out of sight. While he might not have specified how far, the bastard likely didn’t care.
“Sadie,” Shan called again a fraction louder.
A person approached from the dimness—not matching her likeness. Hunched in a winter coat, knickers exposed at the hem, the figure gave him pause. But once the kid got closer, Shan recognized her face, even before she removed her flat cap.
“It’s a disguise,” Sadie whispered. She shook her head to showcase her hair, hacked to a boy’s length. “Like in
The Count of Monte Cristo
. They’ll only be looking for a girl.” Her conspiratorial smile almost made Shan forget the danger of their actions.
“You got the keys?” he pressed, setting down the bag.
“Right here.” She scrambled to produce them from her pocket, and went to hand them over. But from anxiousness, or slickness from the rain, she let go too soon and the ring of keys dropped with a jangle.
They both froze. Alarm replaced the enthusiasm in Sadie’s eyes.
But no guard shouted a warning. No shots were fired.
Shan snatched up Yappy’s keys, raising them to the padlock on the gate. “Which one?”
She shook her head regretfully. She couldn’t know them all.
He wasted no time before attempting the options. “Ah, come
on,
” he groaned after several failed.
Only four chances left. He shot a peek at the roof—no one there—and his thoughts whirled. Having considered this obstacle, he planned to use the air tank in his bag to bust the lock. Yet he couldn’t be sure if rain and waves would hide the sound.
Another key slid in but wouldn’t budge. Now three remained.
He tried again. It went in … and turned! The padlock released.
After another glance upward, he opened the gate and ushered Sadie through, tossing the lock into the withered weeds. He grabbed the bag and closed the gate behind them. Five rows of barbwire stood knee-high. Sadie looked up at him.
He retrieved the tarp and flung it over the rows. “Get on,” he ordered in a hush, crouching down. She climbed onto his back and held tight to his neck. A deep blast of thunder shook the ground. Shan hugged the bulky bag to his chest and worked his way over the hurdles. He strained to keep his balance, refusing to envision the girl slipping off and tangling in the wires.
Once they had crossed, he set her down and yanked up the tarp, preventing a blaring trail. Now came the steep slope. Together, they negotiated the cliff, then strewn tire parts, to reach the water. Sadie made it look easier than it felt, traversing slick rubber and wet boulders. But then, she wasn’t doing it while lugging a deflated raft.
Finally he and Sadie made it into a cave that extended far into an inky void. The air smelled of salt and decayed fish. Frigid water, ankle high, seeped into their shoes as they wove through piles of trash, tires, and debris. Waves broke on rocks bordering the entrance.
From this view, dense fog veiled the Golden Gate. Even buoys denoting the island’s two-hundred-foot perimeter had disappeared. Until he and Sadie did the same, he prayed the uniform would once more shield him from a tower guard’s aim.
Shan emptied the bag onto a heap of driftwood. Vision adjusting to the darkness, he united the raft with the valve of the tank. He gave it a crank and the air started to blow, feeding life into the rubber boat. A minute or two and they’d be on their way. But without notice, the whooshing of air waned and the raft swiftly died.
He turned the main valve of the tank as far as it would go, opening it full bore. But nothing came out. He shook the tank, terror rising in his chest. “Please, please no …” He tried again.
When he’d tested it days earlier, he had released just a whiff. Hadn’t he closed the valve? Was there a slow leak? Had it been only partly filled from the start?
“What’s wrong?” Sadie asked anxiously, hovering beside him.
At most, they had twenty minutes to spare. But they could do this.
He brought the valve of the raft to his mouth and blew out deep breaths. Faster, faster. The weight of the rubber slowed his efforts, but he kept going. Another breath, another. His lungs were burning, his brain turning lightheaded.