Predator

‘No, I don’t, Major,’ the Deputy Chief of Staff said, sliding a spike of iced steel into her honeyed voice. ‘And if he was an Islamic terrorist, I’m sure the Governor would be as concerned as you are. But what we have here, when you get right down to it, is a garden-variety killer. Justice will be done and the Governor wants the people of Texas to see, with their own eyes, that we have the finest police officers and prison staff in the nation.’

‘Can you at least call the Governor’s office to ask if he’ll approve a no-fly order?’ Malinga wheedled.

‘Sure I can, but I don’t need to. I have absolutely no doubt about the Governor’s wishes. Sorry, Major, but the helicopter stays.’

The Trinity River flows into the northern end of Lake Livingston by the small waterside community of Onalaska. The mouth of the river is almost three miles wide and it’s spanned by the Trinity Bridge. As the minivan containing Johnny Congo drove along Route 190, through what passed for the centre of Onalaska, Congo turned his head to look out of the window behind him. He saw a low-slung shed that contained a barbershop, an insurance office and a store that sold carpets and floor tiles. Just beyond it there was a Subway.

‘Man, what I’d give right now for a foot-long Italian B.M.T.,’ the guard sitting opposite him said. ‘Italian herb’n’cheese bread, extra provolone, plenty of mayo, mmm … What’s your favourite sub?’

‘Huh?’ Johnny Congo stared at him, uncomprehending.

‘Subway, man, what kinda sandwich do you like?’

‘Dunno. Never been.’

‘You’re kidding me! You never once ate at Subway?’

‘Nope, never heard of the place.’ Johnny Congo looked blankly at the guard, then sighed, as if abandoning the policy of being deliberately non-communicative. ‘I was in Iraq, in the service, killin’ ragheads. Then I came home, caught a multiple homicide beef and was in jail, too many years, nothing but prison food. Then I was in Africa. No frickin’ Subways in Africa. So no, I ain’t never had no subs.’

‘Huh?’ The guard looked nonplussed, as though this was genuinely new and unusual information. At a crossroads opposite a Shell gas station they stopped at traffic lights. Now they had a choice to make: carry straight on up the road, or go past the gas station on to Farm to Market 356.

Neither Johnny nor the guard knew it but there were eyes glued to an iPad screen in Huntsville, waiting to see if the convoy took that turn. If it did, then Congo was being taken on the scenic route, up to the junction with Highway 19, then taking 19 all the way south-west into Huntsville. But when the lights turned green the patrol car leading the convoy kept going on along Route 190 towards the Trinity Bridge until it was heading out on the earthworks that carried the highway most of the way across the lake, just a few feet above the water, towards the high, white concrete swoop of the bridge itself.

‘Guess you’ll never get to have a Subway now,’ the guard said. ‘No offence, but … you know what I mean.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ said Congo. ‘Question is: do you?’

Thirty miles away, on the northern edge of Hunstville, right by the cemetery, Janoris Hall pumped his fist. ‘Yeah!’ he shouted. ‘We got you now!’ He looked around at the other Maalik Angels who were waiting for the signal to start the operation. ‘We are in business. They have taken the 190, now we’re gonna meet them along the way, have ourselves a rendezvous. All right, now, gather round …’

The Angels all clustered around Janoris Hall and Donny Razak like footballers in a pre-game huddle. Janoris paced around the tight little circle in the middle of the huddle, with Donny shadowing him like a boxer in the ring. ‘We got an opportunity right here, today!’ Janoris shouted, throwing a punch at Razak as the other Angels cheered. There were more punches, more cheers as Janoris went on, ‘It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! An opportunity to make history! We gonna do something ain’t never been done before. We gonna do it …’

‘Do it!’ the other Angels shouted back, getting into the tribal rhythm of call-and-response that had come over on the slave ships from the barracoons of West Africa to the cotton fields and gospel churches of the American South.

Janoris pumped his fist. ‘And again …’

‘Do it!’

‘And again …’

‘Do it!’

‘Gimme Congo on three … and a one!’

‘One!’

‘Two!’

‘Two!’

‘Three!’

‘Congo!’

They all leaped as one into the air towards the centre of the circle and slapped their outstretched hands together. Then Janoris Hall looked around at the faces that surrounded him and said, ‘Let’s go get this sucker.’

A minute later the road to the cemetery was deserted. The trucks and the SUVs were on the road, heading for the intersection with Interstate 190.

On the TV screens, the overhead images of the convoy were giving way to shots of the crowds gathering outside the Walls Unit. There were human rights campaigners protesting against the death penalty, and victims’ groups and law-and-order hardliners shouting, ‘Die, Johnny, die!’

Network reporters flown in from New York and LA were checking their hair and make-up before they went onscreen, and that was just the men. The women remained virtually shrink-wrapped to preserve their doll-like appearance right up to the moment they went live on camera and pretended that they’d been reporting the story for the past several hours. Traders had set up food trucks selling gourmet ribs and chilli. And for every individual who had a professional reason to be standing outside the walls of a state penitentiary in Texas, there were a hundred more who were just rubbernecking, waiting for the chance to say they’d been there, the night they stuck the needle into big, bad Johnny Congo.

In the command centre, Tad Bridgeman, boss of the Offender Transportation Office, was talking to one of his officers, who was riding shotgun in the passenger seat of Johnny Congo’s minivan.

‘How’s the prisoner? Any trouble?’ Bridgeman asked.

‘No, sir,’ came the reply, ‘good as gold. Last I heard, he ’n’ Frank were having a conversation about sandwiches, if you can believe that.’

‘Won’t be no sandwiches where that boy’s going,’ said Bridgeman. ‘Except grilled ones, maybe. They’ll grill Johnny Congo too.’

‘Ain’t that the truth!’

‘Well, you keep me posted, son. Anything happens, I want to be the first to know.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Major Bobby Malinga of the Texas Rangers was growling at the television screens. ‘Jesus H. Christ, can we just get away from all the nonsense outside the gates? I want to see where the convoy’s at.’

Chantelle Dixon Pomeroy laughed sweetly. ‘Why, Major, that wasn’t what you were saying a few minutes ago when you were begging me to take that helicopter right out of the sky.’

‘Yeah, well, if it’s gotta be up there, I want to see what it’s seeing.’

There was a knock on the door and a uniformed police officer came in. His eyes darted around the command centre till he saw Chantelle. ‘Sorry to bother you, ma’am, but there’s a heap of reporters’d like to speak to you, get the Governor’s opinion on what’s going on here today. What do you want me to tell them?’

‘That I’ll be right out.’ She picked up her phone and had a thirty-second conference with the Chief of Staff in Austin, hardly saying a word beyond, ‘’K, ’K, I hear you, got it,’ before a final, definitive, ‘Ooh-Kay.’ Then she put the phone back in her handbag and took a small folding mirror out. She checked her face, checked for any stray auburn hairs and then snapped the mirror shut again. As she slipped it back in her bag, she looked at Bobby Malinga and gave a little shrug. ‘Girl’s gotta look her best,’ she said. Then she headed out of the command room to spread the word from the Governor of Texas.

Just as she was about to say her piece, the media sped away, like a flock of starlings suddenly flying up from a telephone wire. D’Shonn Brown had just arrived at the Walls Unit. He was the only friend or relative of the condemned man who’d be witnessing the execution. Everyone wanted to hear what he had to say about it, even in preference to the Governor of Texas.

About eight miles out of Huntsville, at the junction with Farm to Market 405, Route 190 bends right, and on that bend there’s a big open parking lot with a Valero gas station and an eatery called Bubba’s, catering for local folk and anyone who needs a break from the road. Janoris Hall, in the passenger seat of the Merc ML63, led four of the SUVs and all three trucks into the lot. Just like Bobby Malinga, Janoris had been frustrated by the lack of overhead TV pictures from the helicopter cam, but in the last couple of minutes the news show’s director had evidently tired of the scenes outside the Walls Unit and cut back to the Congo convoy. Janoris had been cursing and banging his hand in frustration against the black leather trim around the satnav as his vehicles were stuck behind one slow-moving truck or RV after another. Though they’d blazed along the highway whenever the road was clear, the obstructions kept coming and he was terrified that they’d see the patrol car, the minivan and the BearCat cruising by them on the other side of the road with nothing they could do to stop them. But the moment he saw the pictures, and the map the TV news station kindly provided in the corner of the screen, he realized that they were going to make it. But it was going to be close.

As they were pulling into the lot around Bubba’s, the convoy was only two or three miles away, heading towards them at an even seventy miles per hour. Janoris had numbered all the SUVs, calling them Congo 1 to 5. Naturally he was in Congo 1 and now he sent Congo 2, which was one of the Range Rover Sports, up the road, with instructions to radio in whenever they saw the convoy, then to turn around as soon as possible and follow it back towards the rest of the waiting Maalik Angels. ‘But don’t go past the Peterbilt,’ he added.

Janoris barely got all his remaining vehicles formed up in the correct order when his phone rang and he heard a voice say, ‘We seen ’em. No more’n a mile away, be with you in less’n a minute. We can see the chopper, too.’

Janoris looked in the direction from which the convoy would be approaching. The road ran dead straight up to the brow of a low ridge about a quarter of a mile away. The moment the convoy appeared over that ridge, that’s when the action would begin.

‘First two trucks to your starting position. Congo 3 slip in right behind ’em,’ Janoris ordered. ‘Congo 5, Bobby Z, do your thing, my man.’

The two massive Kenworth T800s rolled up to the exit that led on to the right-hand lane of Route 190 and came to a stop, side by side, their fenders hanging over the edge of the blacktop, with the second Range Rover Sport on their tail. Anyone else who wanted to get out was going to have to wait.