The Hunted

Nicky, who presumably knew something about this subject: "I hear they got some places over there that are just unbelievable."

Tatyana: "We're cooking up the case to be presented to their courts right now."

Golitsin: "I have experts with decades of experience in this. Why don't I help you?"

Tatyana: "I don't think that's a good idea. The team that manufactures this evidence has to go over and present it to their lawyers. If you build your own lies, you should know your own lies, don't you think?"

Loud chuckles all around. Three days languishing at the federal transit center in Atlanta-while Justice hotly debated which of its many prisons was the most awful at that particular moment-proved to be a godsend. Despite frequent requests, nobody would tell Alex his eventual destination.

Two days after his appearance in court, he had been hustled out of the Alexandria jail by a pair of federal marshals whose only words to Alex were, "Say good-bye to the good life." A quick flight on a Bureau of Prisons 737 to a private hangar in Atlanta International was followed by a fast trip in a shiny black van to the sprawling prison facility in Atlanta. The moment he entered the transient center for what he was warned would be a brief stay, Alex knew he wasn't headed for the pleasurable resort the judge had ordered.

He was locked in a small cell with a repeat sex offender named Ernie, who favored small boys but settled for little girls, depending on his mood at the moment. Ernie was a leper, a small, oddly ebullient man despised and avoided by everybody. Even Alex could not bring himself to speak with the twisted pervert.

The transient prisoners moving through this portal to hell were a mixture of hardened two- and three-timers, seasoned vets, and others like Alex, wide-eyed newbies about to be thrown into a frightening new world.

The old-timers adored the chance to show off their experience, and they acted like garrulous college kids returning from spring break. They hollered back and forth, spitting out stories, exchanging names of acquaintances in this prison or that. The only verboten topic was any mention of their newest crimes. Alex listened carefully to every word, every boast. He studied how they moved, their mannerisms, how they wore their prison garb. He took careful mental notes and absorbed every nuance. Head down, always, but stay alert. Avoid eye contact at all costs-a wrong glance in this milieu was an invitation to rape, or worse. Among enemies, among guards, among friends, it didn't matter-act indifferent, no matter what. Better yet, be indifferent, and trust no one. And the golden rule: never, ever, under any circumstances, snitch.

On day four, Alex's toe was jerked out of the water. He was led out of his transient cell by a pair of stone-faced guards, escorted through a number of cellblocks and hallways, across a large courtyard, and, after four hours of tedious processing-including another shower, another delousing, and another invasive body search-was shoved into his new home.

Ernie, his former cellmate, smiled and welcomed Alex to his new cell. The cold, unpleasant relations between Alex and Ernie had been duly noted by the authorities. Being trapped in a small cell with this pervert would surely kick up the misery level a few notches.

Ernie had arrived two hours earlier, enough time for a little interior decorating. The walls were already plastered with pictures of little boys and girls clipped from magazines.

Based on the most recent indices of prison violence and brutality-and only after the chief of Justice's Bureau of Prisons twice swore it was the pick of the litter-Atlanta's medium-security prison earned the booby prize.

The truth was that by almost every measure, Atlanta's high-security facility had an impressive edge over its adjoining medium-security counterpart-three more murders over the past year, eighty percent more vicious assaults, nearly thirty more days in lockdown, and an impressive seventy percent lead in reported AIDS cases.

That year, Atlanta's high-security prison was, without question, and by any conceivable measure, the worst canker sore in the entire federal system.

The medium-security facility, however, offered a big advantage, one that swung the argument in its favor. Because it was medium-security, Alex would be forced to mix freely and openly with the prison population. Two hours every day in the yard, socializing with killers, gangbangers, big-time dope dealers, rapists, child molesters, and assorted other criminals. Showers twice a week in a large open bay, with minimal supervision. Three meals every day in the huge mess, where violence was as pervasive as big southern cockroaches.