"I heard he was back."
"Who told you that?" asked the guard in a suspicious voice.
"Cheeta Ching," said Remo, running sensitive fingers along the edge of the electronically controlled gate. At the touch of a button from within the guardhouse, the steel-mesh fence would roll aside on a track. The fence would not stop a speeding truck, but it would slow it down long enough for the gate guards to splinter the cab with their automatic rifles.
"That right?" said the guard. "She a friend of yours?"
"No. I heard it on her program."
"Shit!" said the guard. "That wasn't supposed to get out. "
"Well, it is out and I'd like to see the man, if you don't mind." Remo smiled politely because he knew that smiling automatically sent calming signals to an opponent that put him off his guard.
"You're not a relative."
"How do you know?"
"If that guy was related to me, I wouldn't want anyone to know it. Ergo, you're not a relative."
"Nobody seems to want him," Remo suggested confidentially.
"Yeah, they threw him out of Centralia first," said the guard. "They gave him a cover identity, got him a job and everything. He had more fake history that somebody in the Federal Witness Protection program. But the fool hadda wear that stupid fisherman's hat of his. Everybody recognized him. Damn near ran him out of town on a rail. So they sent him to Snohomish. That lasted all of two days. He was only a day in McMurray. They hadn't got him into his motel room when it was all over the six-o'clock news. They hadda send in an armored car to keep him from being lynched. They even threw him out of Nooksack. Hell, they'd let anybody live in Nooksack. Not Barn, though."
"So they brought him back here," said Remo.
"What else could they do? Every time they tried to parole him, folks rose up like a tidal wave. And if the people didn't, the city councils did. Can't say I blame them. You know what he done?"
"Yes," said Remo grimly. "I know what he did."
"Then why're you here, buddy? You don't look like the Welcome Wagon."
"I'm here to kill him," said Remo matter-of-factly. The guard stared at Remo through the wire mesh. He tilted his blue cap back off his shiny forehead.
"Not a bad idea. You know, they gave the guy a house trailer. Set it up on the grounds. He's not a prisoner anymore. He's free to come and go. Acts like he owns the place. Sets my blood to boiling."
"How about opening the gate?" Remo asked.
"You know the warden lets him have women visitors," the guard said slowly. "Hookers, of course. No self-respecting woman would be around him."
"That's insane," said Remo.
"The warden figures if you don't let the hookers in to see him, he'll go off and attack some girl and it'll start all over again. Only this time the warden will be blamed. Our warden, he's a practical man."
"He's a fool," said Remo.
"That, too."
"The gate," said Remo.
"Look, buddy. You got balls coming up to the gate like this and stating your intentions, righteous as they may be, but I'll lose my job if I let you in."
"So don't let me in. Just look the other way while I climb over the fence."
The guard laughed. "That ain't just razor wire up there, pal. It's electrified. The combination will slice and fry you like fast-food bacon."
Remo looked up. Barbed wire coiled along the stone wall of the prison perimeter in big double loops. Double strands of electrified wire ran through the loops. A man climbing the smooth face of the wall could not top the wire without entangling himself or touching the electrified line.
"Why don't you get yourself a cup of coffee and let me worry about that?" Remo offered.
The guard considered briefly. "Tell you what. If you can get in on your own, I'll look the other way. But if you're spotted on the grounds, I gotta do what I gotta do to stop you." He patted his automatic shotgun for emphasis.
"Fair enough," said Remo. "And thanks."
"It's your funeral," the guard said, turning his back.
"It's someone's," agreed Remo.
The guard returned to the gatehouse and busied himself with a clipboard. Every once in a while he could not resist peering through the glass enclosure to see if the skinny guy with the deep, empty eyes was anywhere in sight. He was not.
But the front gate was open.
Not wide, just enough for a man to slip through. The guard looked at his control panel. It was dead. The switch controlling the electrical gate was not open as it should have been with the gate like that. He tried closing the gate electrically. The switch was inoperative. The guard went running out.
The gate was frozen. It would not roll free.
He knew it was the work of the man at the gate. But he could not understand how. It would have taken superhuman strength to force the closed gate open even a few feet. It would have been easier if the power had been cut. But the man with the thick wrists could not have done that either. All power sources were inside Graystone Prison, not outside. And a man attempting to penetrate the prison would hardly sneak in and disable the power just to go back to the gate and open it.
Unless of course the man had disabled the power so he could get through the gate on the way out.
The guard knew one thing. He could not close the gate and he could not ignore the security problem it presented. He hit an alarm switch.
Sirens wailed all over Graystone. A squad of guards came running on the double.
The guard met them halfway. "I think we may have had a break," he said uncertainly. "The main gate is jammed open."
A swift search of the prison revealed that no prisoners were missing. The gate was jammed because the generator that powered it was disabled. According to the electrician's report, the gate had been wrenched open with such force that the mechanism blew out. No one could imagine how the truck that had done it had not also destroyed the gate as well.
Finally, hours later, when the gate was again operative someone noticed that Dexter Barn was missing. Because he was not technically a prisoner, there was no immediate concern. Barn was free to come and go on his own recognizance. But it was strange that no one had seen him leave.
"He'll be back," the warden said confidently.
"I wouldn't count on that," said the gate guard, who refused to explain his remark.
After forcing the main gate to roll back two feet, Remo Williams squeezed in through the space and hugged the wall, moving where the shadows of the dying sun were strongest. He was for all intents and purposes invisible to the guards in the corner turrets. They were more concerned with the sky anyway, where the modern prison escape method, the hijacked helicopter, could be seen coming.
Remo preferred more traditional methods.