He was now a guest of Her Majesty’s worst prisons for security. Belmarsh was Level A, for the worst of the worst: treason, murder, rape. Serial rapists and murders. For those who had ‘escape’ written all over them. Damien certainly fit that part of the description. He was bound for escape as soon as things were arranged on the outside. But in the meantime, he was stuck here. He’d been moved after a failed attempt in the lesser prison. He hadn’t been surprised over the move, but he wasn’t happy about it either. Belmarsh would make things a bit difficult.
But it appeared that finding a way to escape was the least of his problems. Word spread through the inmate population about who he was and why he was here. He found out that reputations were made using such information to someone’s advantage. Half of them wanted to be part of his gang and enhance his reputation. The other half wanted to build their own by taking him down. Hard. So, either run the yard or get his ass kicked for a while. It wasn’t that difficult a choice, really.
After a week of being sized up and sizing up in return, the first Neanderthal finally grew some bollocks and made his move. While Damien had a few inches on him, the brainless twat had a body thick with muscles and a head that looked as if it had been glued straight to his shoulders—which was to say, practically no neck at all. A good three-hundred pounds at least. Something in his eyes convinced Damien that his newfound opponent had the IQ of a squirrel. Damien put the barbells down, sighing in resignation.
Someone called out a name and the mountain of stupid turned his head and grunted. His name was Shaun, was it? A name was always nice. Shaun been talking of teaching the new guy manners—evidently Damien hadn’t paid the proper homage to the wanker. Looked like Shaun had decided that now was the time.
“I mean it, mate,” Damien repeated. “You really don’t want to do this.”
“Oh yeah, mate,” Shaun answered in the thickest Yorkshire accent Damien had ever heard. “See, you’re in my prison yard. You come talk to me, swear to me. But you didn’t do that, did ya? Fookin’ wanker.”
Damien grinned. It was going to be easier than he thought. “Now, you see, if you must resort to vulgarity, you’ve told me that I’m far superior. And I knew that already.”
“Wotcher talking about, you twat?” Shaun grunted a laugh, along with a dozen or so of the other mental deficients standing behind him.
Damien stepped closer, quickly ascertaining every weak spot on the fat pig’s body. “Do you know who I am?”
“I hear tell you’re in here for murder, twat.” Shaun began to circle around Damien, who circled with him. “And some as say you’re in here for treason. You in here for treason, twat?”
Damien’s smile was deceptive. He’d worked hard to perfect that smile. A smile that was confident but not overly so. He needed to guile this brick on two legs into thinking that there was a chance at taking Damien down. At destroying the former MI5 agent. Damien nodded.
“Yes. I’m in here for treason. For selling our nation’s secrets to the highest bidder. And for murder. I’ve killed more men than you can imagine. And all bigger than you, thicker than you, and with far more talent at the game than you.”
Damien smirked as Shaun growled at the insult, while the men behind him broke out in choruses of “oooh” and “you gonna take ‘at, Shaun?” For his part, the hulking moron’s brow knit itself into a scowl as he showed off teeth that were brown and apparently rotting in his head. Damien stopped moving.
One big fist came up, one finger pointing at Damien. “You’re gonna pay for that, twat. I’m gonna enjoy beating you to a proper mash.”
Damien held out his own hand, palm up, and gestured for Shaun to give it his best shot. And waited in glorious anticipation. With all that had happened to put him here in Belmarsh, he was actually looking forward to this. Get rid of the frustration and anger. Pretend this insipid, stupid sod was the one man he really wanted to be bashing. Tom Bridges!
Shaun took a lumbering charge, his arms out to grab Damien. God only knew why, but it didn’t matter. Before Shaun could alter his course, Damien sidestepped his grasp at the last moment and gave him a swift kick in the ass as he blew right by. Damien waited for the big man to realize his mistake and turn around for a second pass.
Meanwhile, the crowd had gathered around them in a circle. Damien heard betting going on and wished he had something to place a bet on himself. He didn’t smoke, and Pamela hadn’t come by with any money yet. He also heard laughter at the near miss of his opponent. That encouraged him more. They were a fickle crowd. But they were speaking Damien’s name with a bit of reverence.
Shaun thundered forward again, roaring in his displeasure. He swung one ham sized fist in the direction of Damien’s head. Damien ducked, stuck his foot out, and tripped his opponent. He stepped away, waiting for Shaun to stand up.
“Shaun, old man, I did try to warn you. This is your last chance to stop this madness.”
Shaun was having none of it. Damien was bored now. Time to end it.
Shaun charged but this time, Damien met him. Once again, he ducked the blow aimed at his head, but he also drove the heel of his palm into the stocky man’s nose. The crunch of cartilage was quite satisfying, a thick smell of blood as it streamed down his upper lip. Damien’s smile was cold, lifeless. He was completely empty inside. Emotionless. He drove his elbow deep into Shaun’s middle, rendering his opponent unable to breathe. A quick dig with his knuckles into the base of Shaun’s throat ended the fight as the man went down on his knees, gagging and turning red in the face. Damien walked behind him and brought both fists down on Shaun’s shoulders, at the base of the neck. The bull went the rest of the way down.
Damien kicked the vulnerable parts of the man’s body—gut, balls, chest. Each kick was answered with grunts and groans. If Monty, the guard in residence this morning, hadn’t stopped him, Damien was quite sure that he would have kicked that fat fuck to death and hardly broken a sweat over it.
The guards swooped in, waving defensive wands in an aggressive manner, tasers at the ready. They shouted threats of the isolation unit and bashing skulls of the miscreants—there would be no disruption of the yard’s routine. Monty latched on to Damien’s shoulder and whirled the unresisting former spy around to fasten restraints around Damien’s wrists. The guard made clear that he was ready to lead Ackerman to the isolation unit and already denying his yard privileges in perpetuity. But the former ‘king of the yard’ had suddenly lost most of his sycophants, to Damien’s suppressed glee. Too many voices shouted out that Shaun had been the aggressor and made the first attempt at blows. Shaun spent two weeks in isolation and Damien was the new ‘king’.
Damien was still punished with a week of cell restriction, but it was all worth it. This little exercise had given him hope. Getting out of here was going to be easier than he’d originally thought.
And then, Tom Bridges was going to meet his maker!