Читаем Shantaram полностью

With a cigarette lighter for a lantern, we worked to cut our way through the double-thickness of hardwood that separated us from the tin on the outside of the roof. A long screwdriver, a chisel, and a pair of tin snips were our only tools. After fifteen minutes of hacking, scraping, and stabbing at the wood, we’d cleared a little space about the size of a man’s eye. Waving the flame of the hot cigarette lighter back and forth, we could see the glint of the metal roof beyond the small hole. But the wood was too hard and too thick. With the tools we had, it would take us hours to make a man-sized hole.

We didn’t have hours. We had thirty minutes, we guessed, or maybe a little more, before the guards did a routine check of the area. In that time we had to get through the wood, cut a hole in the tin, climb out on the roof, use our power extension cord as a rope, and climb down to freedom. The clock was ticking on us. We were trapped in the roof of the security building. And any minute, we knew, the guards might notice the cut fence, see the broken door, and find the smashed manhole. Any minute they could come up through the manhole into that black, sweating cave, and find us.

‘We’ve gotta go back,’ my friend whispered. ‘We’ll never get through the wood. We’ve gotta go back, and pretend it never happened.’

‘We can’t go back,’ I said flatly, although the thought had screamed through my mind as well. ‘They’ll find all the broken stuff, the fence we cut, and they’ll know it was us. We’re the only ones allowed in the area. If we go back, we’re in the Slot for a year.’

The Slot was prison slang for the punishment unit. In those years, that unit, in that prison, was one of the most inhumane in the country. It was a place of random, brutal beatings. A failed attempt to escape through the roof of the security-force building-their building, the head office for the punishment unit guards-would ensure that the beatings were less random and more brutal.

‘Well what the fuck are we gonna do?’ my friend demanded, shouting with everything but his voice. Sweat dripped from his face, and his hands were so wet with fear that he couldn’t hold the cigarette lighter.

‘I think there’s two possibilities,’ I declared.

‘What are they?’

‘First, we could use that ladder-the one that’s chained to the wall downstairs. We could go down again, break the chain off the ladder, tie the extension cord to the top of it, slam it up against the wall, climb up, and throw down the cord on the other side. Then we can slide down to the street.’

‘That’s it?’

‘That’s the first plan.’

‘But… they’ll see us,’ my friend protested.

‘Yeah.’

‘And they’ll start shooting at us.’

‘Yeah.’

‘They’ll shoot us.’

‘You said that.’

‘Well, fuck me,’ he hissed. ‘I think it bears repeating. It’s a fuckin’ salient point, don’t you think?’

‘I figure that one of us will get through, maybe, and one of us will get shot. It’s fifty-fifty.’

We considered the odds in silence for a while.

‘I hate that plan,’ my friend shuddered.

‘So do I.’

‘What’s the second plan?’

‘Did you notice that buzz saw, on the ground floor, as we came up here?’

‘Yeah…’

‘If we bring it up here, we could use the buzz saw to cut through the wood. Then we can use the tin snips to cut through the tin. After that, it’s back to the original plan.’

‘But they’ll hear the thing,’ my friend whispered fiercely. ‘I can hear them talking on the fuckin’ telephone. We’re that close. If we drag the saw up here, and fire it up, it’ll sound like a fuckin’ helicopter.’

‘I know. But I think they’ll just figure it’s the workers, doing more work.’

‘But the workers aren’t here.’

‘No, but the shift at the gate is changing. There’s new guards coming on duty. It’s a big chance to take, but I think if we do it they’ll just hear the noise, as usual, and think it’s the workers. They’ve been listening to drills and hammers and buzz saws for weeks. And there’s no way they could imagine that it’s us doing it. They’d never figure that crims would be crazy enough to use a power saw, right next to the main gate. I think it’s our best shot.’

‘I hate to be Mister-fuckin’-Negative here,’ he objected, ‘but there’s no electricity in this building. They shut it off for the renovating. The only power point is outside. The extension cord is long enough to reach down there, I think, but the power is outside the building.’

‘I know, I know. One of us will have to go down, creep out the door we busted open, and plug the extension cord into the outside power outlet. It’s the only way.’

‘Who goes down there?’

‘I’ll do it,’ I said. I tried to sound confident and strong, but there are some lies that the body just won’t believe, and the words came out as a squeak.