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It showed just how desperate I was that I even considered the possibility of a literal breakout next.
    Breaking into a prison and then breaking an inmate out is as incredible a proposition as the ridiculous and farfetched movies made about such things.
    First, you’d need a vehicle that could even attempt it––one especially designed to do it. An actual military tank or armored law enforcement riot control vehicle came to mind as the only vehicles that might even stand a chance.
    Even if you could find a vehicle that could break through the main gate, with its cement pilings and steel cable reinforcements, that would only get you into the sally port, and in a prime spot to be ambushed by the armed officer in Tower I and the armed response team on the ground while facing the second gate. And even if you could somehow get through the second gate, that would only get you on the upper compound with the chapel, Medical, Education, Food Services, etc., and if by some miracle you made it through there, you’d again face two more gates and Tower II. You’d then have to be able to break into the locked dorm where the inmate was located and then possibly another locked door and a cell door, depending on his custody level. Then you’d have to return through a gauntlet of prison response teams, local law enforcement, and possibly the National Guard, depending on their response time.
    Of course, you could come through a perimeter fence––well, the two razor wire–covered perimeter fences, which would immediately trigger an alarm in the control room, then continue through a series of other fences while being fired at by the towers and response teams, your vehicle covered by the looping razor wire designed to collapse in on whatever goes through it.
    If breaking into the prison with a vehicle especially built to do such things wasn’t impossible, it was the next thing to it.
    The other breakout scenario that came to mind was landing a helicopter on the rec yard or in the field between the chapel and the perimeter fence. You’d have to have a chopper, a pilot willing to do it, which meant involving others in the plan, you’d have to do it while being fired at, and you’d have to coordinate the landing with the inmate’s movements and hope somehow he wouldn’t be shot as he ran toward and climbed aboard the chopper.
    Again, not entirely impossible. Just nearly entirely impossible.
    I abandoned thoughts about the how for a few moments to think about the who .
    Who could the inmate be?
    Not many inmates in the state prison system come from families with money.
    Had I counseled any inmates lately whose mothers were sick?
    Of course, the caller could be lying about the motive––probably was. It could be a simple lie––a different loved one sick or a completely different but still benevolent motive, or it could be an altogether dark motive and the inmate’s life could be in danger.
    If the last, would it change anything? Would I not only risk losing my job and doing jail time, but actually deliver an inmate to be tortured or killed to save Anna?
    I would. I will. I have to.
    If I can keep the inmate from escaping, regardless of the motive, I will, but getting Anna back is far and away the first priority.
    The kidnapper was putting me into a position of seeing what I was capable of on a lot of different levels. Under nearly all other circumstances, I’d never consider aiding the escape of an inmate––no matter the reason. But . . .
    Anna trumps all.
    He’d mentioned that Thursday night, the night we were supposed to trade Anna for the inmate, was a blood moon. Though I had heard the term, I wasn’t sure exactly what that was, so I took a minute and looked it up.
    A blood moon is a total lunar eclipse of a full moon.
    The earth casts its shadow on the moon. The sun’s rays that still manage to reach the moon travel through the earth’s atmosphere, turning the light dark red.
    Some see a blood moon as an omen or