Free Dark Eyes by William Richter Page B

loose the latch on the counterweight. The weight dropped, drawing down on the pulley and swinging the prison’s main gate wide open.
    In an instant Tiger was inside the compound, a machine pistol in each hand. Even at his young age, he had already been a street soldier with the Dobriks for years, and he was well prepared for this moment. He charged toward the guardhouse, where two more guards had just emerged, scrambling to lock and load their weapons. Tiger cut them down.
    Four dead. Two more guards remained.
    Machine gun fire erupted from the nearest tower, strafing the ground at their feet as Klesko and Tiger sought cover behind the corner of the guardhouse.
    “Cover,” Klesko said—speaking in Russian now—and dashed alone out into the open yard.
    Tiger covered Klesko’s move by blasting the tower with automatic rounds. Klesko reached the opposite side of the yard, where the prison trucks were parked, and jumped behind the wheel of the nearest vehicle. He cranked the starter but it sputtered, resisting. Now gunfire hit the truck from above, and the bullets ripped down through the roof of the cab in a line, ending with one round tearing into the outside of Klesko’s thigh. He growled in pain but continued working the starter until the truck’s engine finally roared to life. Klesko immediately threw the gearbox into reverse and slammed his foot down on the accelerator. The truck raced backward, crashing into the tower’s support legs with a loud crack ! The legs bent under the weight of the tower shed, and within seconds the tower reeled and toppled onto the yard with a thunderous crunch, blasting apart and spilling the two remaining guards onto the icy ground, their bodies now broken. They tried to crawl for cover but Tiger was already poised over them with his guns freshly loaded. With a final auto-blast from Tiger’s weapons, the last of the guards were dead.
    Klesko retrieved a set of keys from one of the fallen guards and turned away from the carnage, ignoring his own bloody bullet wound as he limped across the yard, Tiger staying with him as Klesko entered his old cell block. They opened the cell of Dal Yaminski, enemy of the state, thirty-year resident of ITK-61 and, other than Klesko, the youngest of the inmates.
    Yaminski put up no resistance as Klesko herded him out into the passage and into Klesko’s own cell. Tiger was shocked at the sight of the space, filthy and cramped and hopeless, only a few spare boards nailed over the open window to fight back the fierce cold. Years spent here would be a living hell; Tiger wondered what kind of damage the experience would do to a man, what kind of father he had been left with.
    Klesko shoved Yaminski down onto the rotten old mattress on the floor and, without hesitation, shot the man between the eyes.
    Tiger understood. When the prison officials arrived later, Klesko wanted them to find a body in his cell, preferably one that would be difficult to identify. Tiger pulled a lighter from his pocket and lit the mattress in several places. Within seconds the flames began to consume the corpse.
    Tiger and Klesko departed the cell and moved through the rest of the block, opening all the doors to release the remaining prisoners. Most hesitated to leave their cells, clearly afraid. Tiger hoped they would eventually begin to disperse from the prison grounds, further confusing the work of the territorial police when they eventually arrived on the scene.
    “Not men anymore,” Klesko said to Tiger, shaking his head in disgust. Tiger saw Klesko lose focus for a moment, as if forgetting the job at hand. The man’s eyes drifted past the fence, to the empty, frozen wasteland beyond.
    “Too long in here,” Tiger said, his words bringing Klesko’s attention back. “They can’t imagine freedom.”
    “Da,” Klesko said, then barked, “Move or burn!” He waved his gun in the direction of the prisoners; as smoke from the mattress fire began to fill the block, even the most