into the aisle, fighting a dead thigh muscle.
Ttanding count,?a female guard shouted. Ttanding count.?
The whole cell had been woken by the shots and everyone started moving to the end of their beds; except Dave and Stanley, whot each taken a baton round and were in no state to go anywhere. James looked up at the gantry, unsure if he was supposed to move.
The hack with the gun rocked his head and tracked James the four paces back to his bed. James knew a third, excruciatingly painful plastic round would come his way if he stepped a millimetre out of line.
James was expecting the medical team, like earlier, but the guards had pressed the emergency alarm, which brought out the Prison Emergency Response Team, commonly known as PERT. The six-strong team rolled back the cell door and burst through at a run. They looked fearsome, dressed head to toe in black body armour, with gloves, crash helmets and their leader yelling his lungs out:
Beds and heads.?
James copied his cellmates, as they jumped on to their beds and sat with backs to the wall and hands on heads. Kirch, who was nearest the door, didnt have time to move. He was smacked into the aisle with a riot shield and got his ankle crunched under a running boot.
The first to reach Dave and Stanley threw down his shield and ripped a can of incapacitating pepper spray off his belt. Dave screamed out and rolled in a ball, as the PERT leader blasted him with the gooey liquid.
James breathed a hint of the concentrated pepper that had drifted into the air and immediately felt tears in his eyes. It must have been a million times worse for Dave.
Each member of the PERT team had a specific role. While the leader moved in on Stanley with the pepper spray, the second through fifth members dragged Dave into the aisle and grabbed one limb each. When Dave was spread out in an X-position, the final member of the team laid a plastic harness over his back. Strings of pepper spray dangled out of Davee long hair as he panicked for breath.
The two men holding Davee arms bent them into the harness and pulled them tight under a heavy nylon strap. Once they were secure, Davee legs were twisted until his heels almost touched his bum, then strapped into this excruciating position.
The PERT team moved their attention to Stanley, dragging him out into the aisle by his ankles. But the leader screamed out.
Break it off ?Look at the head.?
Stanley was now unconscious and you only had to look at the way his head was twisted unnaturally backwards to see that something was badly wrong. The smallest on the PERT team, who James now realised was a woman, took off her gloves and helmet and crouched down over Stanley. She flinched as she got a whiff of the pepper spray, then looked up at her team leader.
it might be a broken neck. Hee definitely a hospital job.?
The leader looked up at the two guards on the rail. Let us a medical team.?Then he pointed at Dave. Take that to the hole.?
Two of the PERT team put their hands under Davee armpits and picked him up. His eyes and nose were streaming and he had a huge red welt on his ribs where het been hit by the plastic bullet.
James trembled as he watched Dave get dragged out of the cell, with his bare knees grazing along the concrete floor. James knew it could as easily have been him whot ended up being hauled away in agony. Or even worse: what if Stanley had got the knife in?
17. YARD
With Dave locked in the hole, James felt vulnerable. His need for sleep finally overcame his fear at around 4 a.m., an hour after Stanley Duff had been stretchered off to the prison hospital.
The cell door and the gates on to the exercise yard opened at nine, but most kids were still asleep as James limped towards the bathroom, with his bar of soap and toilet roll. He had the sharpened toothbrush handle tucked into his waistband, just in case.
BAM hovered with his mop, while James took a dump. The steel bowls were mounted on the wall, without doors or partitions, so you got zero privacy. The shower was even worse. The water only ran while you held the button down and the lukewarm dribble meant you couldnt get soap out of your hair.
James dried off quickly, desperate to get