Stand Your Ground by William W. Johnstone

Author:William W. Johnstone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corp.
Published: 2014-06-15T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 26

Stark was glad Lucas Kincaid was with him as they left the prison library. Not only did Kincaid know his way around the place, but also he would be a good man to have at your side if all hell broke loose.

Or rather, when all hell broke loose, because Stark knew that generally such occurrences were inevitable.

Going all the way back to his service in Vietnam, Stark had been a good judge of character. He’d had to be in order to survive that jungle hellhole. Put your trust in the wrong man and you were as good as dead.

That had held true in all the fracases in which Stark had found himself in recent years, too.

He trusted Kincaid and was confident that the man would have his back, and vice versa.

As they hurried along a cement-walled corridor, Stark asked, “Is that siren what goes off when there’s a breakout, like in the old prison movies?”

“Yeah, but that’s not necessarily what it means. It’s just an alarm. Could be for bad weather or something like that.”

“The sky was just about clear when I drove out here today, and there weren’t any storms in the forecast.” Stark paused. “But out here, a thunderstorm can blow up without much warning and spin off a tornado. Not many windows in here to let a fella keep an eye on the sky.”

He didn’t believe for a second, though, that the alarm was weather-related, and judging from the way Kincaid said, “Uh-huh,” neither did he.

Kincaid led them to what appeared to be a command center for the correctional officers who worked here at Hell’s Gate, and from there they followed the sound of angry voices to the prison’s main entrance hall.

Alexis Devereaux had her hands balled into fists and planted against her hips as she confronted George Baldwin. It was an oddly inelegant pose for her, but she appeared to be so furious that she didn’t care.

“You can’t keep us locked up in here,” she told Baldwin. “We’re not some of your damned inmates.”

“I told you, I can’t allow you to leave until I know what the situation is out there,” Baldwin responded. “As long as you’re on the grounds of this facility, your safety and the safety of your companions is my responsibility.”

“At least tell me what’s going on,” Alexis demanded.

“I wish I knew,” Baldwin muttered. He noticed Stark and Kincaid and waved them over. “John Howard, I’m sorry to have to say this, but you can’t leave right now.”

“That’s all right, George,” Stark assured his old friend. “If there’s something I can do to help . . .”

Baldwin drew Stark and Kincaid over to one side, ignoring the glare that Alexis directed at him as he did so. Lowering his voice so that only the two of them could hear him, he said, “It looks like the prison is under attack.”

“By who?” Kincaid asked.

“A damned army, from what Cambridge told me. I sent him and Bert Frazier to check out the trouble in Fuego, but they didn’t make it that far.

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