He heard something scraping. Scratching. From no more than twenty feet away. A cockroach? He would crush it. But a cockroach made more of a soft clatter. This was fingernails maybe. Toenails?

“Who’s there?” Lett wheezed.

He heard nothing.

A rat? He pulled in his legs and bent over, ramming his head between his legs to help protect his genitals. Listening.

The scraping was repeating a pattern—four dots together and two spaced out, like Morse code. Lett kept listening, nodding along, recalling his code alphabet. Four dots together, two spaced out . . . Was it the start of a Hello?

A pause. Lett tapped and scraped Hello with his right big toe.

He paused. In return he got what sounded like: No . . . Hell Now.

A giggle rippled from across the room. Then came a piercing wail. Lett sunk his head between his legs again and pressed his thighs against his ears, waiting, hoping for it to die out. It took a while, and the echoing prolonged it, but silence found them again.

“Are you hurt?” Lett said eventually.

No response.

“Who are you?”

A gagging sound came, and another, like someone who had to sneeze. And then, sobs.

Lett’s heart thumped. Cold strips of sweat drenched his forehead, his upper lip. “Kanani? Is it you? Oh, please, no.” It couldn’t be. It was the wail of a man.

“No,” grunted the voice. And the voice went silent again.

Don’t let it be you, Jock, Lett thought.

***

Hours passed. The other prisoner never spoke again. The man had long stopped sobbing. It might have been night or day up above, but Lett could not know, and that was the very point.

Lett heard muffled laughing and footsteps, from outside in the corridor. Dogs barked. Lett’s cellmate moaned hearing it. Then the footsteps and laughter stopped, the barks hushed. The clank of a lock sounded and the squeal of a wheel handle spun. The door flung open, clanged against the wall. Lett heard the footfalls of four or five guards scuffling in and their dogs panting, their long claws scraping at the concrete.

Lett pulled his legs in tight, bent over. A dog sniffed and licked at his knee.

“Ah, reeks something awful,” one guard muttered. “Shut your pie-hole,” grunted another.

Strong hands yanked Lett up and dragged him out. He ended up down the corridor, dropped into a chair. They untied his rope and yanked his hood off, and Lett gasped to take in new air. He blinked and squinted at the light from above. His eyes adjusted. He was sitting at a metal table. Nothing lay on it.

Across from him sat Lansdale. He wore a crumpled beige linen suit with pale blue tie, looking like a country lawyer. Lett felt breath on the top of his head, looked around. Frankie loomed over him, larger than ever. The Army coveralls he wore didn’t help matters.