Alpha Kill - 03 by Tim Stevens Page B

know... We put these guys away. That’s our part of the deal. The Department of Corrections is supposed to see to it that they stay put away. Now we’ve got to find them and round them up, all over again.”
    “How the hell did it happen?” said Venn.
    He heard Yancy rub his hand across a stubbled jaw. “Looks like an explosive of some kind. It took out the generator. Somebody sabotaged the fuel for the reserve unit. A complete power outage. They got more fuel in pretty quick, but by then the damage was done. Adios, seven of the biggest assholes on the planet.”
    Venn said, “An inside job.”
    “Must have been. They’re looking at one or more of the guards to have done it.” Yancy paused. “I know why you’re calling.”
    “Gene Drake.”
    “Yeah. You must be super pissed, and I don’t blame you.”
    “You could say I’m a little... frustrated,” said Venn.
    “We’re thinking he was probably behind the whole thing. He’s smart. Not like some of those others. Hey, you know what? They caught Steenkamp.”
    “Yeah?” said Venn. Jules Steenkamp was one of the escapees who’d been identified on the news bulletins, a serial rapist from Kentucky.
    “Yeah. He tried to knock over a gas station near Aurora in the early hours of this morning. The attendant kept his cool and sounded the alarm. Turns out there were a bunch of state troopers in the vicinity. They took him down without too much fuss.” Yancy chuckled. “Can you imagine? You get handed a golden ticket, a free pass out of a facility like Horn Creek, and the first thing you do is hold up a gas station. While your face is on every TV screen in the state.”
    Venn said, “Steenkamp never was the sharpest knife in the drawer.”
    “Dumber than a box of rocks,” Yancy agreed. “So, anyhow. Gene Drake. We figure he’s gone off on his own. I mean, he’ll have a support team outside. But we’re thinking he didn’t team up with any of the other cons who escaped. He’s not the sociable sort. He prefers to trust his own guys.”
    “Do you have any idea about his team on the outside?”
    “Nope,” said Yancy resignedly. “We’re checking out his visitor list, for the years he was inside. Seeing if there are any obvious suspects there. But there’s nothing so far. Just the usual bunch of lawyers, and prison-reform bleeding-heart types, and a couple others.”
    Venn tried to remember. “Does he have family?”
    “No. My guess is, he’ll head out of state eventually. Illinois is too hot for him to pick up where he left off. He’ll start up again down south, or maybe California. But I’m thinking he’ll lie low for a while. Maybe even stay here, under our noses, till all the fuss dies down and the media lose interest in the story. Who knows, he may even be sitting across the road from us now, eating breakfast and giving us all the metaphorical finger.” Yancy let out a sound that was half-sigh, half-groan. “In any case, and it pains me to say this, he’s not your problem this time. He’s mine.”
    They shot the breeze for a couple more minutes, before Venn said goodbye and hung up. He’d heard signs of life in the office outside his door, and knew his people had arrived.
    *
    H armony Jones could have stepped out of a cable TV drama depicting a dysfunctional police force working in a gritty, inner-city hellhole. An African-American detective sergeant in her late twenties, she was small and wiry and foul-mouthed, and utterly disrespectful toward Venn, her boss. Disrespectful on the surface, in any event.
    She eyed Venn balefully as he emerged from his office. “I get it. The boss is in first, and we’re supposed to feel guilty.”
    “Morning to you too,” Venn said. “Pull up a pew.” He grabbed a chair himself and sat down.
    The remaining member of his three-person team wandered over from his desk. Filiberto Vidal - Fil - had joined them just ten weeks earlier. He was a replacement for Walter Sickert, Venn’s previous sergeant,