Annabelle turned around to face him. “From what Caleb has been telling us about Blue Spruce, there’s no way that escape is that serious of an issue. Every prisoner is kept segregated, and then shackled and searched when they need to take a leak. There are almost as many guards as cons, and they only get one hour out of their cells a day. The setup is perfect for a drug-dealing operation that requires some of his men to routinely leave the prison in the middle of the night to take care of business.”

“But if some of the guards are involved why wouldn’t they just leave from their houses?” asked Caleb.

“Howard Tyree sounds like a real control freak to me. He’d want every man right under his thumb.”

“You’re right about that,” agreed Tyree.

“If these shipments come in routinely to the courthouse with some of the boxes diverted, where do you think those boxes are going?” asked Alex.

“To the prison,” answered Tyree simply. “It’s easy enough. Prisons get deliveries every day of food, supplies.”

Alex added, “And the courthouse records filings are a great way to ship the drugs. DEA or ICE agents would just let it right on by.”

“So they make the switch somewhere en route,” reasoned Annabelle, “and the diverted boxes go to the prison until they’re ready to be shipped out using addicted miners as couriers. Which brings me back to my point. You’re not going to have a bunch of guards walk out the front door every night with boxes of illegal pills. And you can’t fly the chopper out every night, because people will start wondering.”

Harry said, “So you go out the back door.”

“You go out the back door,” echoed Annabelle. “Which I believe is that mineshaft.”

Alex looked at her incredulously. “So we’re going to find this mineshaft entrance, get in somehow, even though it’s been sealed, and then somehow make it through there alive? And then break into a supermax prison where there are guards armed to the teeth and who also happen to be drug dealers?”

“Sounds like a plan,” said Reuben eagerly.

“It sounds like suicide,” shot back Alex.

“Actually,” said Annabelle, “you’re both wrong.”

Chapter 76

CHAPTER 76

“I SWEAR IF IT’S the last thing I ever do, I’m going to kill Macklin Hayes,” Knox muttered to Stone. The two men were back in their cell and many hours had passed since Hayes had come to put the proverbial nail in their coffins.

“But that would be against the law. And people will come and hunt you down and put you away,” said Stone, as he peered out the slit the prison called a window. It overlooked the front parking lot but it was very difficult to see through because of the opaqueness of the window covering attached to the bars.