At 9:30, we don’t know this. All we know is that the Boom Boom Room is pitch-black. Link jumps to his feet and says, “Get out of the way.” He slides the desk to jam the door. There is a quick flash of light above us, and noise, grunting. A panel in the false ceiling opens up and a voice says, “Link, here.” The flashlight sweeps down and through the room. A rope drops and Link grabs it. “Slow, now,” the voice says, and Link inches upward, literally hanging on for his life. There are sounds up there, grunting and scuffling, but I can’t tell how many men are involved.
Within seconds Link is gone, and if I were not so stunned I would laugh. Then I realize that I’ll probably get shot. I take off my coat and tie and stretch out on the Army cot. Guards kick the door open and burst in with guns and a flood of light.
“Where is he?” one guard barks at me.
I point to the ceiling.
They yell and curse as two of them yank me up and drag me into the hall, where dozens of guards and cops and officials are running around in complete panic.
“He’s gone! He’s gone!” They are yelling. “Check the roof.”
In the hall, and in the midst of an incredible racket, I can hear the thumping of a helicopter. They drag me into a room, then another. In the chaos I hear a guard yell that Link Scanlon has vanished. It takes an hour for the lights to come on. I am eventually arrested by the state police and taken to the nearest county jail. Their initial theory is that I am an accomplice.
The pieces soon come together, and because I am being partially blamed for the escape, I have access to the information. I’m not worried about the charges; they can’t stick.
At 9:30 that night, there were two news helicopters buzzing around the fringes of Big Wheeler. The prison officials and police had warned them to stay away, but they were close by. In a show of muscle, the state police flew in two of its own helicopters to secure the airspace over the prison, and this proved helpful when the trouble started. It also proved distracting. There was a tremendous amount of smoke hanging over the prison as six different fires were blazing at one time. Witnesses said the noise was deafening—four helicopters in the area, dozens of emergency vehicles with sirens, radios squawking, guards and police yelling, guns being shot, fires roaring. On cue, and with impeccable timing, Link’s small black helicopter arrived from nowhere, descended through the clouds of smoke, and snatched him off the roof of Unit Nine. There were witnesses. Several guards and prison employees saw the helicopter as it hovered for a few seconds, dropped a line, then disappeared back into the smoke with two men swinging from the lifeline. A guard in a tower at the unit managed to fire a few shots but hit nothing.
One of the State’s choppers gave chase, but was no match for whatever brand and model Link leased for the night. It was never found; no record of it was ever traced. It flew low to avoid radar; air traffic control did not see it. A farmer sixty miles away from Big Wheeler told authorities he saw a small helicopter land on a county road a mile from his front porch. A car met it, then both disappeared.
An investigation dragged on and three officials got fired. It was eventually revealed that (1) the Boom Boom Room is part of an old section of Unit Nine and was built back in the 1940s; (2) its roof is three feet higher than the rest of death row; (3) between the ceiling and the roof there is a crawl space crammed with ductwork, heating vents, and electrical work; (4) the crawl space winds around and branches off, and one section of it leads to an old door that opens onto the flat roof; and (5) the two guards who had roof duty that night had been dispatched to help with the riot, so there was no one on the roof when Link made his dramatic escape.
What if the guards had been there? Given the skill and expertise of the operative who fetched Link, it’s safe to speculate that the guards would have been shot between the eyes. This Spider-Man, as he was nicknamed by the investigators, is already a legend.
There are a lot of what-ifs but few answers. Faced with certain death, Link Scanlon figured he had nothing to lose by attempting a ridiculous escape. He had the money to hire the right commandos and equipment. He got lucky and it worked.
There was a possible but unconfirmed sighting in Mexico.
I haven’t heard from my client and don’t really expect to.
