The Dead Yard Read Online Free PDF Page A

country.

Last night I called up my counterpart in the Mexican intelligence service. He would be more than

happy to have you back in Mexican custody and the Spanish government would be delighted to

extradite you. They have excellent relations with Mexico, as you can imagine."
    I stared at her.
    Any residual lust evaporated, replaced pound for pound with enmity. There was no way I was

going back to Mexico. The place where Scotchy, Andy, and Fergal all had died in horrible

circumstances. The thought of returning to that prison at all was like an ice dagger in the

heart. You know what they do to gringos in Mexican prisons? Let your imagination do the work and

then add a little on top because I’d already goddamn escaped.
    But I didn’t want to work for her. Suddenly I felt trapped. Panicked. My mind sprinting

through scenarios. Not Boston but not bloody Mexico, either.
    Aye. Maybe there was another way.
    What was it that Goosey had said? We could live out in the wilds of Tenerife forever. Fish,

eat fruit, maybe escape by boat.
    I formulated a tiny, desperate, pathetic plan.
    Move fast.
    Last thing anyone would be expecting.
    Up, run at her, kick her off the chair, grab it, smash it down on that ponytailed skull.

Jeremy hears the commotion, comes rushing in, let him have it with the goddamn chair too. Grab

his piece, cock it, point it at the guard, put the gun in my pocket, but keep it on him, and get

the guard to march me right out of the prison, telling everyone that I was being transferred or

released. Walk right out, casual as you please. Take his money, steal a car, go back up into the

volcano country. Wait out the search.
    In von Humboldt’s book I read that the indigenous people kept going a guerrilla war against

the Spanish for over a hundred years. Easy, up there on the mountain fastness. Hunt out a cave,

lay low until the heat cooled down, come back into town, find some drunken German tourist, mug

him, steal a passport, money, plane ticket, Tenerife to Frankfurt, Frankfurt to New York. Get

back to safety in the good old USA.
    Not a great plan.
    Not even a good one.
    But this bitch wasn’t going to threaten me.
    "Since you put it that way, I suppose I have no choice," I said, readying myself.
    "Oh, I am pleased. I’m sorry about the coercive aspect of all this, it’s just beastly that Her

Majesty’s gov. has to be in the blackmail business, but there it is. Indeed, it couldn’t have

worked out better. Jeremy was right, what made you come to Tenerife in the first place, don’t you

know it’s notorious for riots and disturbances? Vulgar, awful place," she said with an amused

expression.
    "I was reading Alexander von Humboldt and Charles Darwin and they paint it in a different

light," I replied and offered her a conciliatory hand and a big broad smile of acceptance.
    "Well, bad for you, but good for us, old boy, Sword of Damocles, Scylla and Charybdis, call it

what you will," she said and gave me her hand too.
    I grabbed it and pulled her violently off the chair, she screamed, dropping her pen, folder,

and water bottle. I threw her to the ground, kicked her to one side, and grabbed the chair. I

lifted it over my head and positioned it to bring it down on her spine.
    A terrible pain in my right foot—which was not the one I’d left behind in a jungle village in

the Yucatán. A searing explosion of nerve endings and when I looked down I saw a penknife

sticking out of my Converse sneaker.
    Jesus.
    Before I could react, she’d kicked me behind the right knee and I fell to the cell floor,

banging my head on the edge of the metal bed.
    I groaned. Jeremy opened the door and looked in.
    "Good heavens, what on earth is happening? Need any help, Samantha?" he asked.
    Samantha picked up the dropped file, righted the chair, and sat down. She moved herself away

from me so I couldn’t pull the penknife out and threaten her with it.
    "I’m fine, darling, but young