No Man's Land Read Online Free PDF

grabbed Wally by the
elbows and lifted him from the bench. Had Wally the slightest notion
that he was about to join his namesake on Aunt Betty’s dining room
wall, he surely would not have gone so quietly.
    “Thanks, Iris,” Romero said. He
snapped the cell phone shut. Keeping one eye glued to the screen, he
had begun to repeat the information for the benefit of the others
crammed into the interior of the CNN van when the chatter of
automatic weapon fire suddenly filled the air. He watched in horror
as a withering salvo of fire drove the kneeling figure face-first
onto the ground. Watched the body twitch for a few seconds as the
river of fire continued, and watched still as the firing stopped and
the body grew still.
    “Son of a bitch,” somebody said.
    Silence filled the air around them
like molten metal. Seemed like there was nothing to say. A moment
later, a pair of inmates came loping out of the shadows, grabbed the
fallen guard by the ankles and dragged him back inside. The powerful
microphone picked up the click click click as the victim’s
teeth chattered across the asphalt even after he disappeared from
view. Still no one spoke.
    At the back end of the arch, Driver
looked down at the guard’s carcass. At Kehoe holding the rifle in
his arms as if it were a baby. “Put him with the others,” Driver
said. So far, they had nineteen dead. Guys who’d finally had the
chance to settle old scores. Guys like Harry Ferris, who’d spent
the past eleven years as the wife of a con known only as the Butcher.
Ferris repaid the Butcher for his sexual favors by emptying a whole
clip into him, wounding two other cons in the process. Things like
that were going on all over the joint. Driver could relate. He
remembered his sixth day in Walla Walla. Almost seven years ago.
Remembered Kehoe’s warning and how he’d stayed in his bunk that
day. Literally hid under the covers like a woman, until the voice
came.
    “Let’s go.”
    A pair of guards stood in the
corridor. They took him by the elbows and marched him down two
flights of stairs, through two checkpoints and two metal detectors,
before depositing him in the custodial staff locker room.
    Driver had tried to stammer out a
question. “What’s . . . I don’t . . .”
    “Orientation,” the fat guy said.
    “Yeah . . . orientation,” the
other guy chuckled. “You’re gonna get your horizons expanded.”
The door snapped shut. Driver could hear the bald one yapping as they
walked away. “His horizons expanded . . . that’s choice, man . .
. horizons expanded.”
    And then it was silent. Driver looked
around. Gray steel lockers lined the walls. Each locker was fastened
by an identical combination lock. White number on black dials. A worn
wooden bench ran down the center of the room, its once gleaming
finish nearly washed away, leaving irregular islands of shine adrift
on a sea of dull wood.
    His attention slid toward the sound
of running water in the next room. He sat down on the bench and began
to listen intently, hearing each drop rhythmically followed by
another, numbering them in his mind as they fell. After a few
moments, his ears began to clear, as if he had come down from a
mountaintop. Beneath the persistent plopping he was able to hear the
drops surrendering themselves, gathering in the grouted joints as
trickles before running down the drain. He closed his eyes and
followed the water down the grated hole. He saw himself swimming
alone in the damp blackness, using his hands to pull himself around
the metal corners, diving through subterranean culverts, sliding
through languid cataracts, until finally following the expanding cone
of light toward the smell of the sea and the cries of shorebirds.
When he opened his eyes on that afternoon nearly eight years before,
two Mexicans were standing in front of him, their perfect blue shirts
buttoned only at the collar, washboard bellies bare. The one on the
right wore a red bandana over his shaved head. He had