Vroooooom! vroooooom!! vrooooooooooom!!!
The Delivery Van bringing the Manitaince guys had arrived. This is the sound Malik and his new crew have been waiting for, all is set just waiting for the arrival of the delivery van that will give them the opportunity to see the world again. The van backed up slow, like it always did. Old wheels, a smell of oil and smoky exhaust pipe. It was the one van everyone half-ignored, because it came on schedule and left on schedule. That small loophole was what gave Malik his chance.
He had not slept, he tried but he couldn't sleep.The plan moved in his head like an old clock... tik tokking and every small noise felt loud. Adams was already awake on the next bunk, pretending to sleep but breathing like a man who had ran a marathon all night. Louis was just walking around and Ricardo kept his eyes on the door. Otis hummed, weird and steady, like a man rehearsing a line and looking around like he just stole something.
Bill, the guard keeps walking around as usual except his steps were slower. His heart beating fast but the idea of having his debt cleared keeps him motivated.
They have forty-five minutes and silently gathered to rehearse their moves.
Bill said "I would switch the radios at the right time."
Louis said "My key would turn very easy and there would be no problems."
Adams added "I'm gonna make heat in the yard, a real loud show to draw eyes." Ricardo said "I would pop Gate C and stand by the fence."
Malik would walk out last making sure everything went smoothly as if he had always been doing from start of the plan.
Non of these men even Ricardo did not know Malik has another crew that also did not know about their crew but that one was a decoy crew, he wanted to make sure that nothing stops this jail break so he made that decoy crew in case of a chase the guards will chase the decoy while the move unnoticed.
Otis went into position first. He had agreed to be the man people would see. He did not ask questions about heroics. He liked the idea of being seen.
Adams started the noise. He dropped a heavy dumbbell, it crashed and then he shouted.
Two other men rushed over, fists out, the kind of drama that brings the whole yard to the fence in a minute.
From nowhere a fight started off that was the second crew and that was part of the plan as Malik promised them a van will be waiting and once an explosion blew up the wall everyone will quickly run into the waiting vehicle. The guards ran to separate the fight and within that split of second the real crew were set wearing the navy blue maintenance jumpsuits.
Louis was already under the maintenance stairs, with a glint of metal and a worn file. He had made a key. He had sat in the dark of the tool closet earlier and pushed metal until it remembered the shape of a lock. Now he held it like a prayer.
Ricardo waited by Gate C. He knew the schedule, in the middle of the chaos an explosion blew up the fence and inmates started running outside, With the panic all the guards started chasing and shooting at the running inmates while Malik's crew ran out Ricardo was already at Gate C, Otis looked the other way while Louis and Ricardo tried to open the gate C with the key Louis made Adams quicky locked the maintenance guys inside moved inside the van, then the rest followed all in. The guys watching the CCTV cameras at gate C thought it was the mentainance guys running away from the explosion and chaos of guards chasing the fleeing inmates.
The Van Started To Move.
They started to move slow and gently and Otis quickly opened the gate D which he has the keys. Two minutes, three. They passed an exit and turned left. Malik watched the rearview with a calm look. The walls of the prison receded not with a single slam but with a small, steady slide.
But everything did not go perfect, There was a crack.
A guard on the second tower felt the movement was suspicious, He saw the van slow, saw men move, He called it in, His voice was small on the radio but loud in the head of the man listening in the booth. Another alarm blared across the yard like a bird broken open. A light swung like a lighthouse. The plan that had been comfortable now sat on a boiling stove.
The van jumped forward and hit speed. Otis did not run with them at the moment, He lingered to throw a pipe at a guard who had come running. Adams saw him and yelled, "Move! Motherfucker, don't be a hero" but the man had chosen a moment to be seen. For Otis the plan had always had a role a part to play. He played it and eventually got caught and that slowed the chasing guards down, he became the fall guy just as Malik had thought it.
They moved far off and split on the edge of the city. Malik, Adams and Louis took the southern route, Ricardo and a man named Diego part of the fleeing inmates took a different bridge.
The prison alarm barked and sirens came like angry dogs, but they played into Malik's plan to raise noise, scatter attention.
They had cash tucked deep in shoes, the names of addresses their people had given them, and the quiet prayer that luck had a place for men who planned too much.
By dawn, they were two trains and three fake passports away, Louis looked older and hollow, his hands shaking as he lit a cigarette. Adams couldn't stop laughing and screaming. Malik watched them both and felt the weight lift, and the old bitter part of him smiled. He felt the city again, the way the air smelled after rain. He turned to Adams and said "You smell this scent of freedom?"
He thought of James, rotting in a cell two hundred miles away, and felt so satisfied.
In a Motel Malik bought fried chicken and beers, they counted the money. They did not talk about Otis. The radio said there had been a scene. Rumors would spread, and the papers would name men. The name Malik would get its own buzz. That was part of the cost.
When Malik washed the night's grime from his face in a cheap sink, His mind couldn't get off James "somewhere in the prison yard, James would wake to a different morning." he muttered with a chuckle.
The world would change for a lot of people, with one small sound: the van's wheels becoming a memory.
Malik didn't trust them enough to keep them because he knew one wrong move from any of them they will all be caught and this time there will be no mercy. Adams took a bus west, Louis got into a grey sedan and drove to a cheap station where his sister waited with a face he liked. Malik, with a small pack and a new name, went south. He walked into the hot sun like a man who had left a life and still wanted more of it.
By late morning, the prison had unanswered questions and the city had different stories. A few guards were suspended, radios went through the mill. Otis is now in a holding cell that smelled like metal and sweat. He took the fall with a laugh that sounded like a penny dropped. He had a cut on his eyebrow and a story that would make him famous in the wrong places. People would speak his name like a warning for years.
Malik did not look back. There was such a small part of him that wanted to. Freedom, for them, was a shape you run towards and never really touch. But that day they touched it, even if for just one clean hour. They would remember the risk, the doubts. They would remember Otis and the price of being seen. They would remember that luck and planning made a dark night into a new path.
Malik now alone in a different motel and thinking what next now. He thought of faces he had broken, and of the ones who had paid him. He had escaped. The city had not forgiven anyone, he's not over yet but for now with James still locked away Malik felt it's time to chill and regroup, he moved down to San Francisco to start a new life and stay away from the watching eye of the police, the world had not changed much. But for a few men, the night had given them a new map. And in that map, there were many ways to go wrong.