PROLOGUE
It had been his last request.
To watch the inauguration ceremony on television.
Sure, it had delayed the trip to Terre Haute by an hour, but then — so the powers-that-be at Leavenworth had reckoned — if the condemned man's last request was reasonable, who were they to refuse him?
The television threw a flickering strobelike glow onto the concrete walls of the holding cell. Tinny voices came from its speakers:
'…do solemnly swear…'
'…do solemnly swear…'
'…that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States…'
'…that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States…'
The condemned prisoner watched the television intently.
And then — despite the fact that he had less than two hours to live — a smile began to spread across his face.
The number on his prison shirt read: 'T-77.'
He was an older man, fifty-nine, with a round, weather beaten face and slicked-down black hair. Despite his age, he was a big man, powerfully built — with a bull neck and broad shoulders. His eyes were a bottomless unreadable black and they glistened with intelligence. He'd been born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and when he spoke, his accent was strong.
Until recently, he had been a resident of T-Wing — that section of Leavenworth devoted to inmates who are not safe among the general prison population.
Two weeks ago, however, he had been moved from T-Wing to Pre-Transit — otherwise known as the Departure Lounge — another special wing where those awaiting execution stayed before they were flown out to Terre Haute Federal Penitentiary in Indiana for execution by lethal injection.
A former civil war fort, Leavenworth is a maximum security federal prison. This means it receives only those offenders who break federal laws — a class of individuals that variously includes violent criminals, foreign spies or terrorists, organized crime bosses, and members of the U.S. armed forces who sell secrets, commit crimes or desert.
It is also perhaps the most brutal penitentiary in America.
But in that peculiar way of prisons the world over, its inhabitants — men who have themselves killed or raped — have, over the years, developed a strange sense of justice.
Serial rapists are themselves violated on a daily basis. Army deserters are beaten regularly, or worse, branded on their foreheads with the letter 'D.' Foreign spies, such as the four Middle Eastern terrorists convicted of the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, have been known to lose body parts.
But by far the most ferocious treatment of all is reserved for one particular class of prisoner: traitors.
It seems that despite all their own crimes, all their own atrocities, the American inmates of Leavenworth — many of them disgraced soldiers — still profess a deep love of their country. Traitors are usually killed within their first three days in the pen.
William Anson Cole, the former CIA analyst who sold information to the Chinese government about an impending Navy SEAL mission to the Xichang Launch Center, the epicentre of China's space operations — information which led to the capture, torture and death of all six SEAL team members — was found dead in his cell two days after he had arrived at the prison. His rectum had been torn from repeated violations with a pool cue and he had been strangled, hog-style, with a bed leg tied across his throat — a crude simulation of the Chinese torture method of strangulation by bamboo pole.
Ostensibly, prisoner T-77 was in Leavenworth for murder — or more precisely, for ordering the murder of two senior Navy officers — a crime which in the U.S. military carried the death sentence. However, the fact that the two Navy officers he'd had killed had been advisers to the Joint Chiefs of Staff elevated his crime to treason. High treason.
That — and his own previous high ranking — had earned him a place in T-Wing.
But even in T-Wing a man isn't entirely safe. T-77 had been beaten several times during his short residency there — on two occasions, so severely that he'd required blood transfusions.
In his former life, his name had been Charles Samson Russell and he had been a three-star Lieutenant General in the United States Air Force. Call-sign: Caesar.
He had a certified IQ of 182, genius level, and as such he had been a brilliant officer. Methodical and razor- sharp, he'd been the ultimate commander, hence his call-sign.
But most of all… patient, Caesar thought now as he watched the flickering television screen in front of him.
The two men on the screen — the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and the President-Elect — were finishing their duet. They stood in gray, wintry sunshine, on the West Portico of the Capitol Building. The new President had his hand on a Bible.
'…and will to the best of my ability…'
'…and will to the best of my ability…'
'…preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, so help me God.'
'…preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, so help me God.'
Fifteen years, Caesar thought.
Fifteen years, he had waited.
