Chapter 4 - THE PRICE OF DOING THE RIGHT THINGDerek had hidden drugs from searches.
Phones.
Cash.
Handmade weapons.
Once, during his third year at Graystone, he carried six ounces of contraband tobacco across the compound during a surprise lockdown without getting caught.
Yet the single sheet of paper tucked inside his waistband made him more nervous than anything he had ever smuggled.
Because this time, getting caught wasn't only about him.
Rusk entered the library.
Two officers followed.
"Everyone against the wall."
Inmates groaned.
Derek didn't move too quickly.
Fast movement looked guilty.
Slow movement looked defiant.
He placed both hands on the wall.
Officer Haines searched the first prisoner.
Then the second.
Rusk remained near the circulation desk.
Watching Derek.
Derek calculated options.
The paper could not survive a strip search.
Destroying it was impossible.
Passing it would risk somebody else.
Then Solomon stepped beside him.
"Move back," Officer Haines ordered.
Solomon deliberately stumbled.
His shoulder slammed into a book cart.
Hundreds of books crashed across the floor.
Everyone turned.
"What are you doing?" Haines shouted.
"My knee."
"Get down!"
As officers rushed toward Solomon, Derek slipped the folded sheet between two loose bricks beneath a radiator.
Three seconds later, Officer Pike grabbed Derek.
"Hands out."
Derek complied.
Pike searched him carefully.
Waistband.
Pockets.
Socks.
Nothing.
Rusk approached.
"Again."
Pike searched again.
Still nothing.
Rusk's eyes narrowed.
"Take him for a strip search."
Derek smiled.
"You buy me dinner first?"
Rusk didn't smile.
Twenty minutes later, Derek stood inside a holding cell wearing a paper gown.
They had found nothing.
Rusk entered alone.
He placed a chair outside the bars.
"Where is it?"
Derek leaned against the wall.
"Where's what?"
"You are not intelligent enough for this game."
"People keep telling me that."
Rusk crossed one leg over the other.
"Do you know why men like Mercer fail?"
Derek waited.
"Because they confuse morality with leverage. Morality is an idea. Leverage is something that forces another human being to act."
"You practicing a speech?"
Rusk ignored him.
"Mercer could have retired quietly. He could have enjoyed his pension. But men like him need to feel righteous."
"Maybe he just doesn't like thieves."
Rusk's eyes hardened.
"Careful."
Derek smiled.
"There it is again."
"What?"
"That word."
Rusk stood.
"I'm giving you an opportunity. Whatever Mercer gave you, surrender it. In exchange, I make several disciplinary problems disappear."
"How many?"
"All of them."
"And if I don't?"
"I think you understand."
Derek did.
Loss of privileges.
Segregation.
Transfer to a harsher prison.
Additional charges if Rusk could manufacture them.
Derek had spent nearly a decade building his small kingdom inside Graystone because control made imprisonment easier.
Rusk was offering to let him keep it.
All Derek needed to do was abandon an old man he had humiliated two days earlier.
A week earlier, Derek would have agreed instantly.
He looked at Rusk.
"Don't know what you're talking about."
Rusk's mouth tightened.
"Think carefully."
"Already did."
That night Derek returned to C Block.
Solomon waited near the stairs.
"You get it?"
Derek nodded.
"You owe me."
"For what?"
"That fall."
Solomon stared at him.
"You think I fell?"
Derek smirked.
Solomon almost smiled.
They retrieved the paper during morning movement.
Now they had to get it outside.
Incoming mail was inspected.
Outgoing mail was read selectively.
Phone calls were monitored.
Legal correspondence offered more privacy, but Derek couldn't simply mail evidence to a journalist and label her his attorney.
Mason suggested smuggling it through visitation.
Ortiz rejected that immediately.
"They search visitors."
"Not every piece of paper."
"They scan everything."
"What about chaplain?"
"Too risky."
For the first time, men from different factions sat around the same cafeteria table discussing something other than contraband or territory.
Walter's influence was doing something Derek had never managed with threats.
It was making enemies cooperate.
"You know what Mercer would say?" Solomon asked.
Derek groaned.
"What?"
"He'd say we're thinking like prisoners."
"We are prisoners."
"Exactly."
Solomon leaned forward.
"Which means we're assuming everything has to be hidden."
Ortiz understood first.
"We don't smuggle it."
Derek frowned.
"We file it."
Federal prisons allowed inmates to submit formal administrative grievances.
Those grievances created records.
Copies could potentially reach regional offices.
Rusk could intercept one.
But perhaps not twenty.
So twenty-three inmates filed grievances that afternoon.
Each described concerns about Walter's segregation.
Each referenced questionable conduct.
Three included partial Northstar account numbers.
Five mentioned Elena Ward by name.
Others requested investigation by the Office of Inspector General.
Derek filed one too.
Officer Pike took it.
Their eyes met.
"You're sure?" Pike whispered.
"No."
Pike almost smiled.
"Probably healthier than pretending."
By evening Rusk knew.
He ordered a lockdown.
Cells were searched.
Mattresses overturned.
Books dumped.
Personal photographs scattered.
Men shouted from behind locked doors.
Derek sat on his bunk listening.
Normally a lockdown enraged him because it reminded him how little power inmates truly had.
This time he felt strangely calm.
Rusk could search every cell.
He couldn't erase twenty-three separate electronic grievance entries already logged into the system.
At 10:15 p.m., a guard arrived at Derek's door.
"Legal call."
"I didn't request one."
"Move."
Derek was escorted to a small interview room.
A phone sat on the table.
He picked it up.
"Hello?"
A woman's voice answered.
"Is this Derek Sloan?"
"Who's asking?"
"My name is Elena Ward."
Derek sat straighter.
His heart began pounding.
"How'd you get this number?"
"Mr. Sloan, twelve minutes ago my office received three anonymous emails containing screenshots of federal grievance entries from Graystone."
Derek said nothing.
"One of those grievances included my name and the phrase Northstar Institutional Supply."
Derek looked through the small window.
Officer Pike stood outside.
Facing away.
Elena continued.
"I have been investigating Northstar for eighteen months."
Derek gripped the phone.
"Then you know Mercer."
"I know Walter Mercer tried to contact me two weeks before his arrest."
"Can you prove he's innocent?"
A pause.
"I couldn't."
Derek swallowed.
"And now?"
"Now I'm not sure."
Derek leaned forward.
"What do you need?"
"The evidence Walter hid."
Derek smiled without humor.
"That might be complicated."
"Then simplify it."
"You always talk like that?"
"Only when someone innocent may die in prison."
Derek's smile vanished.
"Die?"
Elena hesitated.
"Mr. Sloan, Walter Mercer has a serious heart condition."
Derek felt cold.
"How serious?"
"He requires daily medication."
Derek stood.
"They put him in segregation."
"Then somebody needs to verify he is receiving it."
Derek dropped the phone.
He hammered on the door.
"Pike!"
The officer entered.
"What?"
"Mercer's medicine."
Pike froze.
"You need to check."
"I can't access—"
"CHECK!"
Pike stared at him.
Then something changed in his expression.
He ran.
Thirty-four minutes later, alarms sounded from the segregation wing.
Medical staff rushed down the corridor.
A stretcher followed.
Derek stood behind the glass as Walter Mercer was wheeled past.
His face was gray.
His eyes closed.
An oxygen mask covered his mouth.
Deputy Warden Rusk walked behind the stretcher.
For one second he looked directly at Derek.
And Derek understood the message.
This hadn't been negligence.
Someone had stopped Walter's medication deliberately.
May you like
The game was no longer about corruption.
Someone was trying to make sure Walter Mercer never left Graystone alive.
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