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horribly dangerous. Their strength of will is incredible, they can dominate people so easily, make them do anything they want. Jack, please, for me. Get out of there, now.”
    “I can’t. I’m sorry.”
    “Then be careful. At least promise me that you’ll be careful.”
    “I will. I swear. Mrs Steadman, who do you know in San Francisco who can help me?”
    She chuckled softly. “I don’t fly much these days, Jack. You know that. It’s been decades since I visited San Francisco.”
    “I could do with someone local who knows can tell me who’s naughty and who’s nice.”
    She chuckled again. “You do make me laugh sometimes,” she said. “You put your soul in mortal peril and you continue to crack wise.”
    “It’s my way of dealing with tension,” said Nightingale.
    “I know that,” she said. “And that’s fine so long as you realize the seriousness of your situation.”
    ‘Just get me the name of someone on the ground that I can talk to, Mrs Steadman. Once I’ve done what has to be done, I’ll leave. I promise.”
     
 

CHAPTER 8
     
    Nightingale took the cable car down to Fisherman’s Wharf and arrived half an hour early for the second ferry of the day. This early in the morning, the queues were short, so he bought his ticket, then smoked a cigarette while he waited. There was a street performer just opposite him, dressed as an antique bronze statue and making every effort to stay motionless.
    The ferry finally pulled in. The Alcatraz Escape looked quite new, or at least freshly painted in black and white and ran to three decks, the top one open for anyone brave enough to sit up there on a chilly April morning. Nightingale walked up the gangplank and stood against the forward railing.  He looked over at the island prison through the morning mist as the ferry plowed through the choppy sea .
    There were several dozen other passengers on the ferry, but none looked as if they were investment bankers on the run from Satanic assassins. Two women walked past him, a couple of six-year-olds in tow, and an older man in a dark anorak. A dumpy middle aged woman with her hair in a bun leaned against the opposite railing. Most of the passengers had taken the sensible option of sitting inside. Nightingale was as conspicuous as he could make himself in his light overcoat, leaning against the rail, but nobody came near him for the whole fifteen-minute trip.
    The ferry pulled into the jetty on Alcatraz Island and the passengers disembarked and headed up the hill to the baleful, gray monolith of America’s most infamous prison. Nightingale knew it by reputation, the one prison never to see a successful escape in its entire history. Getting out of the cell, outside the wall and past the armed guards was pretty much impossible, but that would still have been the easy part. The mile and a half swim through the icy water and vicious currents of San Francisco Bay was the real killer. Literally.
    He followed everyone else inside, took his audiotour handset, and started walking past the long rows of tiny cells. Apparently each one would have been equipped with bed, chair, basin and toilet  years before, but the majority were empty now. The place gave him the creeps. The thought of thousands of America’s most dangerous criminals cooped up here under armed guard over the years was chilling.
    His cellphone rang once, then stopped before he could take it out. A minute or two later, a tall young man in a pulled-up black hoodie and jeans walked past him and whispered as he passed.
    “Outside by the smoking area in ten minutes.” It was Mitchell.
    Nightingale watched him walk down the corridor and out the main door at the end. He mooched past the cells, pretending to look interested. He went outside and walked down to the dock where a central cylindrical ashtray and some unwelcoming metal benches comprised the smoking area. The young man was waiting, looking out towards the city, his hood still pulled up to hide as much of