Lost Era 05_ Deny thy Father - Jeff Mariotte [27]
Trying to shrug off despair, he continued his journey. Around the bend from where he’d found the boat, his spirits lifted when he saw a dock, modern and in good repair. Of course, you idiot, he berated himself. You can still take a tour to Alcatraz, so there must be some way of getting to the island. He didn’t know how often the tours came, though he seemed to remember that they were at least daily, if not several in a day. All he needed to do, then, was to join the next one that came when it returned to the city.
Of course, how was he to explain how he’d wound up here, without breaking the rules of the assignment?
The only answer was, he couldn’t. He’d have to do what so many prisoners in times past had failed to do-he’d have to break out of Alcatraz.
But to do that, he’d first have to get inside. Casting an eye toward the city, he saw the familiar profile of a tourist skimmer heading toward the island. Not much time, then, he thought. Swallowing his anxiety, he started up the hill toward those forbidding walls.
The path from the dock into the prison was clear and unbarred, since it was traveled only by tour groups on organized outings. That made getting inside the facility easy enough. The outer wall, topped by a tall fence corroded and torn by wind and weather, stood open for him. Chunks of stone were piled against the wall where they had fallen under the relentless pressure of the elements on this exposed outcrop, but the wall itself was still impressively thick. Beyond this wall, which encircled the facility-he had passed another building, closer to the shore, which had seemed to be administrative rather than confining-the prison itself reared up, solid and grim, with narrow windows set into the aged concrete.
He continued into the prison itself. Here, too, the doors were open, and he passed through into a semi-contained space. Sky showed through holes in the ceiling and walls, but he could still get a sense of how imposing the place must have been in its heyday. Or either of its heydays, he mentally corrected himself. He knew the prison had been closed sometime in the mid-twentieth century, but then reopened again for a time late in the twenty-first, in the hard times after the war.
As he explored, the quiet outside was broken by the buzzing sound of the skimmer approaching the island. He had to hurry, had to find a place where he could hide. The first section of the prison seemed to be a processing area, where prisoners were booked into the system. The cells were farther back, beyond more sets of doors and bars. But a quick look around the cells proved to Dennis that there was no hiding there-anyone walking down the hallways between cells could see every inch of them, bunks and sinks and toilets, mold-encrusted walls still showing graffiti from ages gone by.
Which only made sense, he realized. Surely the guards would have needed clear sightlines throughout the cells. He turned back, his anxiety building. From outside he could hear voices already, as the tour guide led the group toward the prison. Once at the processing area, he passed through an open door and ducked down behind a chest-high counter, pressing himself up against the far side. As long as no one came through the door into this area, he would be safe, but there was no place to hide if the group decided to check out the office. The floor here was filthy, caked with years of refuse, bird droppings, and neglect, and it stank. But he could take it if he didn’t have to wait too long, he figured. And really, how long could a tour of this place take? There wasn’t really so much to see inside.
He could barely make out the guide’s words, so hard was his heart pounding in his ears as the tour came through. He worked to still his breathing, willing himself to become as invisible