Chapter 1: Flying the Coop
Jason Knudsen had a lot of time to read in St. Hannah. They had transferred his cellmate to solitary a month ago and he appreciated the quiet. He reclined his slender body and held the book, an old cowboy novel, a few inches from his face. Back on the outside he would have had a desk to prop his feet up on, a wide brimmed ranger's hat to shield his eyes. Now it was just prison beige and a mattress. Such was the penalty for blowing up a dam while dressed as an axe murderer. It could be worse, he reflected, he had a chance for parole, Deacon had not been so lucky.
Outside the guard pacing the cellblock stopped. By the shadow looming over him Knudsen knew that it was either his cell or Cutler and Magnus across the way. He really hoped it was for them. He was just getting to the part of the story where the gang decides to give the train job one last go.
"Knudsen" the guard barked.
Knudsen sighed and dog eared the page in his book, laying it down on the bed as he stood up to face the guard. "What the hell do you want at this hour of the morning? Most of these boys are still asleep."
"Shut up Knudsen" the guard said severely, yet conspicuously quietly. He took out his keys and opened the call door. "Come with me."
"Where in the hell are you…"
"I said quiet."
The guard led him through several doors that he was fairly sure should have been manned by guards. Last year during the riot Knudsen had gotten a pretty good look at the building. The way this guy was leading him it almost looked like they were going to the roof. Finally, at one of the last security checkpoints before just that destination, Knudsen saw another guard, two actually. Each one had a prisoner with him.
He recognized both men. One was Hank Bascombe, an old army ranger and farmer that got arrested trying to terrorize people off an airfield so he could buy it cheap. The other one was Johnny Jacobo, The Pterodactyl Ghost. He was nothing more than a henchman for a big time thief the way Knudsen had heard it. But when the Jones boy had used his name and alter-ego in one of his books, everyone got in in their heads that he was this brilliant mad scientist.
The guards all nodded at each other and walked their prisoners out the door and onto the roof. At this point in the day Knudsen was pretty sure nothing could surprise him. He was wrong. A black helicopter was parked in front of him right on the roof of one of the most secure prisons in the country.
The guard that had let Knudsen out of his cell opened the door and waved the prisoners in. The three of them glanced at each other. Bascombe was the oldest out of all of them, late into his fifties and showing it too. He commanded a certain respect from the other two so when he stepped into the chopper they stepped in with him.
The door shut and the rotors began to spin. How they were getting out of here without alerting the whole complex was a mystery. But, the craft had somehow gotten in without doing just that so apparently anything was possible. Feeling more confident, though perhaps not safer, Knudsen leaned closer to the pilot.
"Where are we going?"
The Pilot said nothing. Instead he pressed a button on the control panel and a sheet of Plexiglas closed, cutting the pilot off from his passengers. There was a hiss of air as a sweet smelling gas was sprayed into the cabin. Knudsen slumped against the wall and everything went black.