Authors Notes: As always, I need to thank my reviewers for your kind words, and for sticking with me while I went on my writing hiatus a while back. Hope you enjoy this next instalment and don't hate me too much for all the cliffhangers.

Chapter 12

"This lighting is still really bad."

"If we go anywhere else they'll see you."

"Okay, but just don't expect it to be neat."

"Ah, shit!" John gasped under his breath as the needle went in. He gritted his teeth as Maria worked on the gash in his back, sowing it up with little stitches, neat, despite her complaints. John was laying on his stomach on the floor while she knelt beside him patching him up. He rested his chin on his folded arms and glanced round at the group of people he seemed to have gathered. They'd moved further down the hallway, so that they were no longer in the pitch black, but it was still difficult to see in the dim light. He'd reluctantly chosen to trust his two cellmates and let them help him to the two nurses that he'd hidden in the darkened corridors.

John was feeling dizzy from blood loss and his head was pounding, so it was a relief when they'd sprang into action without being asked. Caleb had snuck off back to the infirmary for supplies and had come back with sutures and bandages and a tiny penlight to see by, and Guerrero and Belton had posted themselves at either end of the corridor to keep watch while Maria tried to stem the bleeding. Adam had stood leaning against the wall, watching silently with hooded eyes. The young man hadn't said anything since they'd left the fighting ring. John would be more annoyed with his sullen ungratefulness were he not so preoccupied with the medical aid he was being given.

When the last stitch was put in and Maria tied it off, Caleb, who had been holding the penlight, put the small device in his teeth while he stuck a thick dressing on it. John went to get up but was stopped.

"You need to sit for a bit, let the dizziness go." Maria said, as the two nurses helped John up to a seated position against the wall. "You're lucky it wasn't deeper. He narrowly missed nicking a kidney."

John nodded, "Thank you." He said gratefully.

"Just try not to get into any more trouble okay?" Maria told him, resting a hand on his shoulder. John closed his eyes for a moment but opened them again when he heard Adam clear his throat. He stared up at the nineteen-year-old who had pushed himself from the wall. John looked up at him and frowned, biting his tongue to keep from getting angry at him.

"You could've killed me." Adam said quietly.

John just shrugged.

He noticed there was a look exchanged between Adam and Guerrero, the older inmate seemed to be urging him on. "You promise you can help me do a deal?"

John nodded. "My Captain can make sure it happens." He felt awash with relief, but he kept his expression neutral. It would do him no good to get carried away before the information proved useful.

Adam took a deep breath and glanced around to make sure there was no one outside of their little group to hear him. When he spoke, it was in a low voice, "There's a guy, an accountant. He launders the money. He's also the one who bought our properties for us, using a shell corporation."

"You got a name?" John smiled.

"Justin Villiers. He works at an address downtown."

John nodded. "I need to get this information to my boss. If this checks out, you'll be compensated."

"I want out of here." Adam said, panicky. "I'm going to get killed if I stay here."

"There's an old landline in the guard's office. It's linked in with the same back-up generator as the infirmary so it should still work in a power out." Belton suggested.

Guerrero shook his head. "Vincent and his crew have taken it over."

"What about the warden's office?" John asked.

Belton frowned. "That office works like a panic room. It'll be locked down, no one in or out. It's the guard's room or we wait this out."

That idea caused Adam's to get even more upset. "We can't wait this out. Why haven't they come for us yet? They've left us to it, hoping we'll all kill each other while we're trapped in here."

John couldn't say the thought hadn't occurred to him, although he knew at least one person would be trying to regain order, he refused to believe that Captain Maldonado wasn't doing everything in her power to try to get him out, no doubt backed up by his faithful partner Dorian. "There has to be a reason why they haven't come in yet. But you're right. The longer we wait with this information, the longer these girls are in danger. I need to get to a phone now." He hauled himself to his feet, ignoring the way his head swam.

"I'll go with you." Belton said gruffly.

"Thank you." John said.

"Me too." Guerrero said, causing the others to look at the man sceptically. "Look," he continued, "you're going to need help to do this. And I've done a lot of things but human trafficking? That shit needs to stop."

"And me." Adam said shakily. John got the sense that this change of heart had something to do with Guerrero's influence over the younger man.

"Okay." John nodded. "We need to get up there quietly, if we can cause a distraction then I can slip inside and use the phone."

"What do you suggest?" Belton asked.

"I have an idea. We'll have to make a pit stop first."

This plan was far too reliant on putting his trust in convicted criminals, John decided. But so far, thing seemed to be working smoothly. It turned out that for every prisoner revelling in the chaos of an unregulated prison, there were at least two more who wanted things to go back to the way they were. Whether it was for fear for their lives, an institutionalised need for order or just because they were sick of being in the dark with no running water. Whatever their motives, John had sent his team for supplies and they'd come up trumps, Guerrero knew a guy who knew a guy who had been making his own moonshine in a hidden air vent in the back of the laundry complex and Adam had headed back to their own cell for the rest. He now had a plastic bottle of the homemade alcohol, a lighter and a scrap of bedsheet, all for the promise of restoring order.

The plan was simple, John had explained it while he was soaking the strip of bedsheet in the alcohol and twisting it into a wick at the top of the bottle. Belton and Guerrero were lookouts, while Adam went to Vincent to barter for his latest fix. While there he'd light the Molotov cocktail that John had just made and hightail it out of there. With the fire spreading rapidly and no water access in the building for the sprinkler system, John would use the distraction to enter the room and use the phone. Guerrero had grinned at the plan and proclaimed, "What could go wrong?" John could have given him a long list but he'd held his tongue instead.

Now they had all gone up to the ground level where the guards room was located. The huge heavy metal doors that normally separated all the ground level areas were hanging wide open and the place had been trashed. They hurried passed the visitation room which had been turned into a gambling den, complete with cigars and bottles of scotch that had been appropriated from god knows where. Lee Vincent was amongst them, crowing over a victory, "Who thought that an MX run prison service was a good idea?" John muttered, mostly to himself, but in the hearing of Belton.

"You're preachin' to the choir here!" Belton agreed. "We all said that without human's keeping an eye on things, the scum in here'd be able to get away with murder. Sacks of shit, the lot of them."

The comment was said with great venom, something John wished the prison officer would tone down a bit considering they had two prisoners helping them. He was going to tell him so but Guerrero turned on him and grabbed the fat man by the neck. "Chinga tu madre! Careful who you call shit old man!" He growled. "Or I'll tell this fine upstanding officer here that it's you who smuggles the booze in, in exchange for a hefty payout."

John rolled his eyes, he wasn't surprised. He'd known something was off about the prison officer from the moment he'd been incarcerated. Sadly, no matter what he thought to them, he was stuck with his little team now, at least until he could complete his mission. "Everyone needs to calm down." He said in his best low and dangerous tone, getting between the two men and pulling them apart. Both of them allowed him to intervene but stood there glaring at each other, their fists clenched. "You can settle your differences later. Right now, you have the choice to help me out, or you can get the hell out of my way and let me deal with it." Miraculously, it worked and although the two of them continued to glare at each other, the group moved on towards the guards room.

The corridor here was empty but there was a lot of noise coming from the guards room. The door was left ajar and they could hear music being played and a couple of men laughing. The music was some sort of old school hip hop from before John was born, and sounded tinny. John realised that in absence of a power supply, they'd phone through on the landline phone and someone was playing it down the phone to them while they listened on speaker. He could hear another voice trying to carry on a conversation with them despite the din. At least John knew that the phone was working.

He nodded to the others and Belton left them to skirt round to the other side of the corridor to stand guard further down. The remaining three hid around the corner from the room and Adam took the Molotov cocktail, nervously trying to stuff it into his jumpsuit pocket.

"Seriously, man. That asshole is the worst one in here." Guerrero said, still not letting his spat with Belton go. "You gonna do something about him right?"

John clapped a hand on his shoulder to try to calm him down. "Right now, all I care about is making this phone call. We'll sort any injustices out later."

"Yeah?" Guerrero didn't sound convinced. "You chota are all the same, always converin' for each other."

The assumption riled John, but he didn't have time to argue. He turned to face Adam. "Are you good?"

"Yeah." Adam replied in the most unconvincing way possible. John gently wheeled him round and nudged him in the direction of the room.

John hid with his back to the wall as Adam went to go speak with Vincent's crew. He heard the tentative knock on the door to get their attention but the music was too loud to hear what was being said. The conversation seemed to be taking a long time and it was long enough for John to start second guessing trusting the young addict. Just as he was cursing himself for allowing the teen to screw the plan up, there was a yelp and the sound of fire igniting. Then there was a scream that was quite clearly from Adam. Guerrero darted round the corner and chased after his friend, abandoning his post.

The hallway started to fill with smoke, whatever Adam had thrown his little cocktail at had clearly caught light. Then there was the sound of coughing and three guys came racing passed John on their way out.

John pulled his vest up over his mouth and nose to protect him from the smoke and kept low as he crept into the abandoned room. The room was of a decent size, having once housed a lot more guards than now worked at the facility, with a wall off screens on one side that were currently dark, and a couple of couches and a dining table and kitchenette in the opposite corner. It was the couches that had now caught light and the flames were burning up the walls, billowing thick black smoke up into the room.

John tried to suppress a coughing fit as he reached the phone on the desk below the screens and hung up the music before dialling a number that he knew by heart. He sat on the floor to avoid the worst of the smoke as it rang. He could feel the heat of the fire on his face and his lungs constricting as he listened to the ring tone on the handset. It took five rings to get answered and when it was picked up, John let out a sigh of relief.

"Hello, this is..."

John didn't even allow her to let out her usual greeting before interrupting her. "Sandra, it's John. Take this name down. Justin Villiers, he has an accountancy firm downtown." He was interrupted by a persistent cough from the smoke.

"John, are you alright?"

"Yes," he croaked. "Get Dorian to run a check. Villiers is the money launderer and buys up their property for them."

Despite the obvious concern in her voice, Maldonado took her usual command. There was a pause while she was clearly discussing something with someone, and then, "John? Dorian says he's got the name. He's calling Paul now, he'll start planning the raid. John, are you alright? We're trying to get you out of there."

"I'm fine." John lied, even though the cough was getting worse. The smoke had filled the entire room by now and he could barely his hand in front of his face. "Don't worry about me, you need to concentrate on Villiers."

"I will. But there are plenty of people working on a way to get you out."

"Yeah? So what's taking so long?" John found himself saying. There were shouts outside now, he knew he didn't have long to talk.

"There's a jamming device. We think it's inside the building and can't be shut down remotely. Someone with a lot of money has set this up."

John glanced around the room, not that he could see most of it. When he thought about the kinds of people who might have that kind of money and power, only one came to mind. Corcoran had warned him that Vincent had wanted a riot, was the device in here? He had more questions to ask, but suddenly the line went dead and he was left with a dial tone.

John slammed the phone down and cursed under his breath. He had no idea what this device would look like, but to cover the whole of the prison it had to be reasonably large. He started pulling out various cupboards and clearing shelves, anywhere that a device like that might be hidden. Then he remembered he had seen an old wooden door to the side of the kitchenette. Blindly, he searched for it, his fingers finding the knob and letting himself through, he wanted to the door behind himself to keep the smoke out but realised he needed the fire to see what he was doing in this windowless room.

It was a small locker room with old metal lockers. John started smashing at the locks, bending the thin metal fronts until he prised them open. It was the fourth locker he tried that he looked down and underneath someone's dark jacket was a large metal device with a digital screen on it. The device was the size of a black box data recorder, of the kind found in airplanes, and had a similar casing. He crouched down and had a look at the screen. There were a few buttons on it but none of them were labelled. John had to remind himself it wasn't a bomb as he started pressing buttons randomly. At first nothing seemed to happen, but then eventually he must have pressed the right button as John could feel the low vibrations the machine was giving off stop and then suddenly the lights went on in the room.

The lights crackled on and John looked up at them with relief, although the sudden visibility was short lived. John had just picked up the device and smashed it against the floor when the lights flickered and died again, reminding him that the fire was too close for comfort and that it had just eaten through the electrics in the wall. John wasn't sure that smashing the device had caused any damage, but he didn't have time to find out. He turned on his heel and ran.

The main guards room was now unbearably hot as he dashed through it towards the door. He stumbled out into the corridor beyond, coughing and struggling to breathe. As he blinked away the soot that had made it into his eyes, he felt a couple of pairs of hands grab at him and haul him away. He was propelled out of the corridor and towards the main atrium of the prison, still struggling to see. As he got away from the smoke and his eyes adjusted he realised the hands had not belonged to Guerrero and Belton as he'd hoped, but two of Vincent's men.

He was being pulled out into the main prison population. The entrance on the ground floor providing a viewpoint from which to survey the levels above and below where he was. He realised now that the viewpoint had become a stage, with huge crowds of the prison population staring at him from the nearby levels. The lights were on again now and it illuminated them, showing him just how many had come to see the latest spectacle. Vincent was standing addressing the crowd as John was pulled forwards. He saw that Guerrero and Adam were on their knees with their hands tied behind their backs with strips of bedsheet. Belton was stood in the crowd, his arms crossed, beside a man that John recognised as belonging to Vincent. He watched as the man slipped something into the prison guard's hand, it was a subtle gesture but one that was obviously meant to be seen by the detective. They wanted him to know he'd been double crossed.

John was forced to his knees between Guerrero and Adam, and his hands wrenched behind his back as he tied them tightly. Vincent turned to him and grinned. The punch, when he gave it, was not unexpected, but hurt all the same. It threw him sideways, and he almost knocked Guerrero over, but rough hands grabbed him and hauled him back upright again.

"These men are trying to stop our fun!" Vincent shouted at the onlookers. "What do you think we should do with them?" And for the second time that day, the crowd cheered for John's blood to be spilled.