The Tower

A station wagon turned onto the street, its headlights catching Jade in the face. He squinted into the light. The vehicle slowed as it approached, and Jade saw a young couple gazing at him in horror.

As they passed, he noticed a young girl in the backseat. She wore a bright yellow slicker and had one hand raised, palm open, pressed to the window. There was a look of fright in her eyes, a confused terror about the world outside.

Jade felt a flash of shame. Goddamnit, he thought. What's she doing up so late?

Her eyes continued to watch Jade as the car passed and disappeared into the night.

Jade blinked heavily, fighting through the rage clouding his mind. What the hell am I doing? he thought. He looked down at his knee in the bartender's back, his hands gripping the man's head like claws.

Like an animal squatting over its kill, Jade thought. Like a fucking animal.

He released Jim's throat and rose carefully from his back. "Jesus, I'm… Jesus, I'm sorry."

Jade reached to help Jim to his feet, but Jim jerked away from his touch. His chin was bleeding and Jade could see that he was crying. Jade's face was red with regret and self-loathing. He took a step forward, but Jim cowered away from him.

Jade opened his mouth but nothing came out. Silently, he turned and walked to the BMW. There was a squealing of tires, and Jim was alone in the parking lot.

Allander sucked the cool night air through his teeth. His feet swayed beneath him, dangling off the roof as he watched the black car speed away.

Jade had nowhere to direct his rage, and Allander sensed that he knew he was losing ground. I'm so far inside him I can touch him wherever I want, Allander thought.

He tilted his head back and stretched his arms before getting up to head back to the new house. His house.

Chapter 48

A leg protruded from the glade of trees, a blue-and-brown hiking boot on the foot. A line of blood ran over the exposed calf, matting the thick black hair.

Allander stood with his back to the body, gazing through the last line of trees to the edge of the cliff. The sun was rising gloriously, its golden rays glittering off the ocean surface.

There was a drop of several hundred yards that ended in a small forest just outside the grounds of Maingate. The gates were laid open to the world as workers scuttled back and forth, towing out ruined materials and bringing in new equipment and tools.

What the prisoners would have done to see the gates spread like that for just a moment during their captivity, Allander thought. The entire facility was emptied of inmates for these weeks of repair. With the exception of Claude Rivers and the single guard watching him on the Tower, Allander had emptied it. He had emptied Maingate.

As he looked out over the main prison and saw the Tower in the distance, he slid his hand under his shirt to his nipples. They were hard in the crisp San Francisco air, and he ran his fingers over them, one at a time.

He had taken a new house for himself in the western hills of San Francisco. It was being entirely remodeled, so it had no decorations or heating, just bare walls and a few pieces of covered furniture. For some reason, construction had ceased, but Allander had still prepared a careful escape route in case workers showed up.

He was quite content with his new home. And how wonderful that he could keep the lovely red Jeep from his former house in Palo Alto.

He had found a small motorized saw in the front closet of his house, no doubt left there for use in the remodeling. He had used it last night, employing one of the extra-long, heavy-duty extension cords he had found, and wrapping a water-cooler insulator around the saw to try to dull the noise, since he was working out in the open, away from the protection of his home. But he needn't have worried; the traffic had drowned out everything anyway. And now it was ready-waiting, hidden. His entrance. That was for later, however. He had to focus on today, on completing the first part of his plan. There was so much to do, so many things he'd set in motion.

For the past week, he had been timing the workers at Maingate. They usually left the site at around four o'clock (bless those government workers). The guard on the Tower switched at 6:00 A.M. and 4:00 P.M. There was never more than one guard, probably because the rest had been moved to San Quentin to deal with the Maingate overflow. They were accustomed to having two men guard eighteen Tower prisoners; they probably figured one-on-one was a breeze.

Someday soon, he'd have to go down and take care of things. He'd have to wait until after they left, of course, although he had no choice but to hide his supplies there during daylight. Aside from the Tower guard and Claude Rivers, Maingate was pretty much abandoned by four-thirty. He'd have to remember to wear the pair of dusty overalls from his house, though, just in case someone saw him-that way they would think him one of the workers.

He took pleasure in the solid, unwavering path of his plans.