Devil's Brew, Book #8 of the Janitors Series - One of the recruited prisoners splits.

Today’s excerpt is from Devil’s Brew, Book #8 of the nine-book Janitors Series.  One of the prisoners joining the team for the pending raid inside Syria decides freedom is better than taking the risk of getting shot at.  Enjoy and have a fantastic day. 

m.j.

 

Janet and Suzan had stayed behind when the rest of the Janitors joined Jim and those at the Joint.  Their assigned task was to monitor the prisoners to make sure none got “itchy feet”—as Jim had called the potential risk of some of the prisoners deciding greener pastures laid somewhere besides Quantico or Syria.

The prisoners had been placed in a separate barracks from the other new members of the team.  Janet and Suzan had decided to do two hours on duty, and two hours rest time each during the course of the night.  It was agreed that the one on duty would go through the barracks and do a head count at least every fifteen minutes.

Suzan, having been trained by the Marine Corps in the art of escaping if ever captured knew one of the first things to do was to time any guards checking on prisoners to see if a pattern developed.  Therefore, she varied her rounds from seven to fifteen minutes, sometimes she even came back through a minute or two after her last rounds.

What she failed to do was inform Janet to follow the same procedure.  Exactly fifteen minutes since her last trip through the barracks on her turn on duty, Janet discovered an empty bed.  While the former resident of the bed had done his best to make the bed look occupied, Janet wasn’t fooled.  She immediately called the main security shed, where they had been forewarned that an escape might be a possibility, without going into detail that some of the new “recruits” were recently released prisoners.

Next, Janet got Suzan up and the two of them rounded up half a dozen of the new team whom they knew to be retired Marines familiar with Quantico, and the search was on.  Both Suzan and two of the former Force Recon Marines were adept at tracking.  One of those Marines soon found the trail of the escaped former prisoner.

When Janet had called in to security, she told them that the prisoner had been checked fifteen minutes previously.  After careful questioning, the Marine Gunny Sergeant she spoke to reasoned…correctly…that the man had probably left within a minute or so of Janet’s previous visit to the barracks.  He quickly looked at his map of the area and plotted about how far the man could have gotten in fifteen minutes.  He dispatched his men accordingly.

Then Janet called Jim.  “Jim, one of the prisoners is on the lamb.”

Jim chuckled.  “She says, ‘on the lamb’ yet.  Okay, Jan, fill me in on what you’re doin’ about it.”

Janet was trying to keep up with the other members of the search team as she trotted along and spoke to Jim at the same time.  Finally she stopped and told Jim exactly what was being done.  She ended by saying, “Jim, I’m so sorry I messed up.  From the way the Marine I talked to about this jerk being gone, I figured out I shouldn’t have been so predictable.” 

When she finished, Jim asked who the man was.  On being told who it was, he muttered an oath.  Then realizing Janet was a bit rattled at having one of her charges on the run, he joked, “So, other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how’d you like the play?”

Janet laughed in spite of herself.  “Funny, Mr. Wise guy.”  But to herself thought, “Jim’s so cool, just like Dan…takes things in stride and doesn’t belabor it.  Thank God.”

 “Okay, sounds like you folks have it under control.  But I suggest you let the others do the tracking and you get back to that barracks to make sure no others give it a try.”

“Damn, I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Bye, Jan.”

“Bye.”

 

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