Deadlock

19

Ty threw the open palm of his left hand into Phileas’s face, following up by slamming the elbow of his right arm at his nose. Phileas’s torso shifted back, but his feet stayed planted. A fist flew into Ty’s chest, landing hard close to his solar plexus. The air punched out hard from his chest, but he kept fighting, throwing a knee up into Phileas’s groin. Then another. And another. Phileas groaned. His head came down, earning him another knee, this one finding his face.

Ty’s height gave him leverage and he set about using every inch of it. Blood clotted in the dust as he continued to rain in blows on the older man. Then what felt like an express train clobbered the side of his head and he was on the ground. There was no sensation of falling. One minute he was standing, the next he was looking up at the bloodied face of Phileas, smiling down at him through broken teeth, and raising a foot, which crashed hard into Ty’s nose, snapping the cartilage.

Lock had moved hard right to avoid direct engagement with Ty. Glancing back, he saw Reaper on his shoulder — for a big man who’d spent a large part of his life in a small box, he moved fast. The other white inmates clustered round them in a tight phalanx.

The shank was down by Lock’s side. Time to do something about that. He slowed his pace fractionally and the front of someone’s foot caught the back of his heel. He was ready for it so he didn’t fall, but he did stumble, and as he grabbed someone behind him to steady himself, the weapon tumbled from his hand.

Ahead of him, he could see Ty giving a good account of himself. Marvin was getting the worst of it from one of the Nazi Low Riders who had him pinned to the ground and was throwing punches with bowling-ball-size fists at Marvin’s head. The remainder of the black inmates were also pressing in to get some of the action. A couple rushed to Marvin and Ty’s side while the rest pivoted hard left towards Lock and his group.

On the periphery, the two guards on the yard drew their canisters of pepper spray from their hips, stepped back and let loose at the edges of the melee in a futile attempt at delaying the inevitable.

There was a flurry of limbs as the two groups clashed in a mass of roundhouse kicks and brutal punches. Lock found himself facing a black inmate about his own height but twenty pounds heavier with the word ‘Thug’ bannered in blue ink across his forehead. Lock stayed low in an effort to minimise the target area offered to his opponent, then stood and slammed his right shoulder as hard as he could into the centre of Thug’s chest. Tear gas swirled around the yard, and Lock stepped back, noticing as he did so that the mass engagement had broken into small clusters of two or three bodies.

Blood spurted in a regular pulse from the neck of a black inmate to Lock’s left as two of the Nazi Low Riders went to work, one pinning him down while the other stabbed him repeatedly in the face and body. The stabber paused and grinned at Lock before plunging his shank back into his prostrate victim.

Lock looked round for Ty, then caught another whiff of tear gas which stung his eyes and blurred his vision.

Staying low, he charged Thug, coming up hard again, this time with an elbow to his opponent’s chin. It was a clean connection, right on the button, and Thug’s legs buckled under him. Lock helped him along, sweeping the hapless black inmate to the floor by grabbing his prison blues around the collar and bringing his right leg hard into the back of Thug’s knees. Lock gave him a final kick in the head for good measure, keeping the arc of his foot low, and started to skirt round the bodies.

Amid the mayhem, he’d lost sight of Ty.

Wisps of tear gas clung low to the ground, lending a near-medieval tinge to the scene as Lock glimpsed half a dozen guards in full riot gear opening a gate into the yard and rolling on through. Wielding tasers and batons they went to work, weeding first through those inmates closest to the fence.

‘Get down on the ground now!’

‘Do not move!’

Most inmates offered only token resistance, two or three minutes of close-quarter combat having sapped the energy of all but the fittest. After taking a couple of baton strikes to their bodies to demonstrate their continuing machismo, they followed orders, rolling away from opponents and kissing the dirt, bruised fingers laced tight behind their necks.

As the guards moved in, Lock spotted Ty. Next to Ty, Marvin was lying motionless on the ground, clots of red dirt flecked on the ground around him. Ty was still going at it, giving a good account of himself, throwing palms and elbows at Phileas with alarming speed and ferocity. Phileas was backing away, his face swollen.

Lock couldn’t resist a smile as Ty grabbed Phileas by the back of his neck, using his spare hand to gouge at his eyes — a classic piece of Krav Maga, where total destruction of your opponent was prized over looking good.

‘Get down on the ground!’ the guard nearest to Ty yelled.

Do it, thought Lock. Just do it, Ty. Give it up. But Ty was too far gone, too consumed by the massive dump of adrenalin brought by combat.

Lock half-turned and caught a baton to the back of his knees. His legs folded and the ground came up to meet him. His hands pressed the dirt as he pushed himself back up, but another blow, this one to his back, sank him, just as he caught a glimpse of Ty astride Phileas, the guy barely moving.

Up in the gun tower, a lone guard surveyed the yard through the scope of his rifle. Save for one corner of the yard, all the inmates were lying face down. The riot officers moved among them, assessing who needed medical attention and who needed restraints.

To his left, though, a black inmate still had one of the whites pinned down. A riot officer blasted a cone of pepper spray in the black inmate’s direction, but the black inmate had pulled his shirt up over his face, shielding himself from the worst of it.

The guard’s finger moved to the trigger of his gun as the inmate advanced on the guard. Picking a spot behind and to the left of the inmate, he squeezed the trigger.

Lock heard the sharp crack of the shot and watched a puff of dust from the warning shot rise near Ty. He looked up towards the gun tower, but right then two members of the riot squad moved in front of him, their heavy black boots blocking his vision.

A few seconds later came the crack of a second shot, and the yard fell silent as Ty hit the ground.