Eddie shook his head. “Too dangerous.”

“Please. I want to.” She hesitated. “I need to get some control back. Besides, he was on guard outside the cell block. There’s no one on the upper floors. All of them sleep in the old administration wing.”

“How many of them are there?” Mike asked.

“I think eight or nine, but I’m not sure.”

The number seemed low considering they posted three men at the main gate, but Mike let it pass. “Armed like this joker here?”

“A few carried machine guns when we first got here,” Susan told them. She began to weep softly. “Please let me take you to Dr. Merrick. If I don’t feel I’ve helped I will never be able to live with what he did to me.” She flicked her chin toward her unconscious rapist.

Eddie was about to refuse again but he believed her when she said that she would never recover from her ordeal if she slinked off into the night. Lord knew his own sister had only found peace after her rape when she polished off a fifth of vodka and a bottle of sleeping pills. The beatific smile on her cold face still haunted him. And he saw no harm with Susan coming with them if the only guard on this floor of the prison was trussed up and gagged. “Okay,” he said. Mike shot him a disapproving look. Eddie waved off his concern. “You can come as far as the cell block door. I will stay with you there and then we’re all getting the hell out of here.”

“Thank you,” she said and wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand.

After plucking a set of heavy brass keys from the rapist’s pants Eddie waved for Ski to join them. Ski came down the stairs and hooked up with them at the only door out of the cell block. The hinges were on the outside of the door so, to reduce the sound of it creaking open, Ski and Mike got on the ground and lifted it as Eddie swung it open just enough for them to scrape through.

The hallway outside the door was long and straight, the floor powdered with sand. There was absolutely no light for the goggles to amplify so Ski, Eddie, and Mike pushed them up on their heads. They groped their way blindly, keeping their fingertips brushing the rough stone wall until they reached a corner. Around the bend stretched another long passageway.

“It’s halfway down on the right,” Susan whispered. “There’s usually a chair outside the door for the guard.”