‘Good, then we can-’
‘Not so fast.I just got off the phone with Dever.Paperwork’s cleared.All of it.The transfer order, the transport authorization, the receiving facility sign-off in D.C.Every box is ticked.We’re going tonight.’
Ella blinked.‘Tonight?’
‘Tonight.Dever wants Creed in D.C.before the press gets wind of the Borden arrest and starts connecting dots.We go to Louisiana State, we collect Creed, and we put him on a plane.Two hours.Both of you.Get yourselves sorted.We meet outside the precinct in one hour, then we’ll get a convoy to the penitentiary.’
Fields made himself scarce, and just Ella and Ripley remained.Ripley turned to her and said, ‘One hour.I guess it’s fast food or nothing.’
One hour.Austin Creed.The man she'd put on death row, who was sitting in a cell seventy miles from where she was standing and was about to become her passenger on a flight to Washington, where he'd sit across from a woman who was either Lindsey Doyle or her twin sister, and Ella would finally get to watch his face when he saw her.
She’d been waiting for this since before the figurines.Since before Borden.Since before she’d set foot in New Orleans.
'Well,' Ripley said.'You going to stand there all night, or are we doing this?We've got a long drive.'
‘We’re doing this,’ Ella said.Ella walked out of Austin Creed’s bedroom and didn’t look back.
EPILOGUE
They convoyed north in three vehicles.Fields drove the lead cruiser with Ella in the passenger seat.Ripley sat in the back and said nothing, which was unusual enough that Ella glanced at her twice in the rear-view mirror to make sure she was still breathing.Behind them, Dever rode in a black SUV with two U.S.Marshals that the Bureau had flown in from Baton Rouge.A third vehicle – a reinforced transport van with mesh windows and no rear handles – brought up the rear.It was empty for now, but it wouldn’t be empty on the way back.
The road between New Orleans and Angola was seventy miles of nothing.It was mostly flat, mostly dark and entirely featureless.Ella spotted the occasional gas station, shut for the night, and the mile markers ticking past in the headlights.
Fields broke the silence thirty minutes in.
‘Creed’s been woken up and briefed.The warden pulled him out of his cell at eleven fifteen and sat him in the admin block with two guards.He knows he’s being transferred.He knows where he’s going and he knows why.He’s been told the terms of the deal and he’s agreed.Life without parole in exchange for cooperation with the Doyle identification.’
‘How’d he take it?’
‘The warden said he was calm.He asked for a cup of tea and what time the flight was.’
‘Prick,’ Ripley said.‘Of course he asked for tea.’
Ella said, ‘If I just found out I wasn’t going to die, I’d ask for tea too.’
Fields glanced at her.’I get the feeling you two don’t like this guy.’
‘We were the ones who caught him years ago, and I was the one who put him on death row.’
‘No kidding?’
‘No kidding.’
‘Well, the Bureau’s chartered a plane out of Baton Rouge Metropolitan.Wheels up at 3 AM if everything goes to schedule.’
‘It’ll go to schedule,’ Ella said.
‘Famous last words in this business.’
The convoy crossed the Mississippi on a bridge that hummed under the tyres.On the far side, the road narrowed, and the trees got thicker, and the mile markers stopped, and there was nothing but blacktop and darkness until the prison appeared.
Louisiana State Penitentiary.Angola.Eighteen thousand acres of former plantation land surrounded on three sides by the Mississippi River and on the fourth by the Tunica Hills.The largest maximum-security prison in the United States.Six thousand inmates.A working farm, a rodeo arena, a golf course for the warden.A death row.Ella was here just a few months ago.
The perimeter fence came first.Razor wire, triple-stacked, catching the light from the guard towers in thin silver lines.Then the gatehouse.Fields pulled up and showed credentials to a corrections officer who looked like he'd been expecting them for hours and resented every minute of the wait.He then checked Ella's badge, spoke into a radio, checked something on a clipboard, and spoke into the radio again.Then the gate rolled open on a motorised track and they drove through into a holding area where a second gate waited for the first one to close behind them before it opened.
The gate rolled open.The convoy passed through and they parked outside the main entrance.They got out of the car, and Ella could feel the heaviness of the Mississippi River a few miles away behind them.Dever climbed out of the SUV and straightened his tie.He'd put on a fresh suit for the occasion, which told Ella everything she needed to know about his priorities.The two Marshals flanked him, both armed, both wearing body armour under their jackets.
A captain in a grey uniform met them at the interior doors.He was a large man with a shaved head and a clipboard.He gave them instructions about what to do with their weapons and they complied.Ella unclipped her holster and placed her Glock inside a steel lockbox mounted to the wall of the reception building.Ripley and Fields did the same.Dever handed over a compact SIG that looked like it hadn’t been fired in forever.
