ADX Praxis (The Red Lake Series Book 3) Read online

  Eddie turned into a drive, past a utilitarian sign,

  ADX Praxis

  Federal Bureau of Prisons

  Department of Justice

  Praxis is an administrative maximum-security prison. Built ten years before, most people in the country are unaware of its existence. At Praxis and other ADX prisons like it, the Federal Prison System collects the refuse of its penal society. Gang leaders, hit men, racists, and violent borderline psychotics are brought there to be controlled for societies and the penal system’s safety.

  Control and solitude are the watchwords of the prison. It is designed to manage men with minimal contact. Many prisoners spend twenty-three hours a day in isolation. Three days a week they are permitted into the exercise yards with other prisoners. Guards watch and control their movements by a network of video cameras and 1,500 electronic gates.

  For others prisoners it has been worse. These were the political prisoners who lived twenty-four seven in isolation. They were men like the notorious traitor, Edwin Alec Darwin, the darling of the KGB before the end of the Cold War, or Zhou Zhengzhong who spied for the Chinese, in the global struggle of economic imperialism that developed during first decade of the twenty-first century.

  The ADX prisons also housed terrorists, men like Timothy McVeigh’s co-conspirator, Terry Nichols, who was now at ADX Florence in Colorado, or Abdul-Alim Khalili, an uneducated Arab youth who yearned to destroy an American airliner for the glory of Allah and the cause of Holy Jihad.

  Prisoners like these men lived their days, on D block, colloquially called the Political Wing, isolated, alone, and cut off from the society they rejected. They existed only as images on a television monitor. Seldom did a guard have physical contact with one of them.

  Like Philip Nolan, the young lieutenant, in Edward Everett Hale’s book, they were men without a country. Having attacked society, society now renounced them.

  Eddie was glad for the job. For the last two years it meant a steady paycheck. The job saved his marriage, without it he would be hand to mouthing it on odd jobs and Lisa would probably be back at her mothers house. Steady money changed all that, it gave them a chance to settle in and grow into marriage. There were worse jobs, Eddie thought.

  He locked his truck and walked across the wet parking lot. An occasional raindrop still fell from the sky.

  “Morning,” he called as he entered the employee entrance at the side of the administration building. Behind an inch of bulletproof glass with a gun port below it, a guard nodded back.

  A buzzer sounded. The steel bars ahead of him slid open. Eddie entered what amounted to a spacious cage. Behind him the gate latched and a bell rang. Eddie dropped his badge, belt, keys and ID into a basket. He pushed it through an opening in the wall and into an inspection area, where it might be hand searched or simply fed through a machine.

  Behind him another guard, waited outside the gate for the cage to be cleared. Eddie stepped in front of a screen where a backscatter x-ray revealed his most hidden secrets to whoever was on duty in the security room. Another buzzer sounded and the inner gate slid open. On the other side his possessions were returned minus his keys. They might be used as a weapon if he lost them. He would pick them up again on his way out. Life as a guard, he thought, was not so different from being a prisoner, at least for eight hours a day.

  Eddie waited until Chico Reynaldo finished being checked.

  “Same old same old, eh Chico?”

  “Yeah, short staffed, over worked, and underpaid. What duty you on this week?”

  “I’m doing the political wing.”

  “Oh geez, I hate that rotation.”

  “At least you don’t have to take any crap from anybody, bitching about this or that,” Eddie said optimistically.

  “But it’s dull, dull, dull. No one to talk to and nothing to do but watch those dudes sitting in a seven by twelve foot concrete box. It’s a little like being buried alive.”

  “Sure! My heart bleeds for them. The rats on D block all either sold us out or tried to blow us up. Traitors or terrorists, screw all of them.”

  “No, no, no! No touchy!” Chico said laughing.

  “That’s a metaphor, Chico.”

  “Whatever you say brother.” Chico slapped him on the back and turned aside at the control door for A wing.

  Eddie waved. He made slow progress to his workstation. At A, B, and C, wings he had to pass through double sets of steel bars. Somewhere in the building people electronically observed his progress. Like a rat in a maze, his movements were anonymously controlled, unseen by him, without his bidding, the gates opened and closed.

  At D block he entered an office. It was small and windowless, excepting the inch and a quarter thick Lexan window that overlooked an empty hallway, opposite the door by which he entered.

  The hallway was sterile and cold under the fluorescent lights. The linoleum gleamed spotlessly, unmarred from wear and tear. Ten steel doors lined the walls

  “Good morning, Kline,” Eddie said cheerfully.

  “Is it? Who would know in here?”

  Eddie scanned the sixteen monitors lining the walls. Two rows of five showed the ten cells. Each cell had four cameras. The guard could display only one angle on the monitor or divide the screen into fourths and visually watch all four viewpoints on a single screen. A cockroach couldn’t hide from him. Below these monitors were two for the hall, and then four for the exercise yard.

  Eddie looked puzzled. “What happened to Darwin?”

  On any other block he would have referred to the prisoner by a number but those on the political wing were so notorious it was easier to refer to them by name, unless a supervisor was present, in that case they had best do it by the book.

  “Edwin A. Darwin went to meet his maker last night. Or more likely straight to hell,” said Kline with a smile.

  “What happened?”

  “The guy sat up about two in the morning, headed toward the crapper, and went down on the floor. He let out a grunt and that was it. I called in an extraction team. They went in, and ten minutes later Darwin was rolled out on a gurney a free but dead man.”

  “They’ll probably be crying in the Kremlin when they hear about it.”

  “I doubt it. Darwin was yesterday’s news. Twenty-nine years, eleven months to be exact. Another month and he would have been released.”

  “Yea, that’s right, thirty years without parole, that’s the old federal life sentence.”

  “Darwin was close, but no cigar!” Kline glanced at the clock on the wall, “I’m out of here.”

  Throughout the prison, a loud buzzer sounded, six o’clock reveille, another indistinguishable day began. Kline stood up, stretched and signed out on the duty log. “Good night,” he said, thinking of his bed.

  Eddie signed in. He started a fresh pot of coffee at the small service sink. For the next eight hours the prisoners on D block were all his. Only seven cells were occupied. In Darwin’s cell there was no trace that he occupied those eighty-four square feet for the last ten years, the extraction team cleaned it out.

  In the cells men rose from their concrete bunks and began their daily ablutions. D block was boring duty. The guards watched prisoners view television, sleep, pace, exercise, brush their teeth, crap, read, jerk off, eat, puke, cry, rant, go crazy, pray, and sometimes die. There were no secrets at ADX Praxis.

  Chapter 4

  The Red Lake Clarion ran a feature article following Darwin’s death. Lou Harding picked up most of the facts from Wikipedia. The article read:

  Edwin Alec Darwin betrayed his country for less than a half a million dollars over ten years. The Defense Department claimed his actions cost the lives of two covert assets and over a billion dollars in compromised security, due to lost technology and consequential R & D to offset what the Russians learned.

  Darwin graduated from MIT with a degree in electrical engineering, in 1964. General Dynamic Electric boats hired him three months later. Electric Boat Company employed
him in various capacities, until the FBI arrested him for espionage in July 1979. During his tenure at Electric Boat he held top security clearance and worked on the Ohio, Sturgeon, and Virginia Class of submarines.

  It is believed, that Soviet agents recruited Darwin after he incurred significant gambling debts during the late 1960’s. Darwin never confirmed those reports and steadfastly refused to cooperate with the investigation subsequent to his arrest. At the time he was detained, Darwin carried classified documents pertaining to the propulsion system of the Virginia Class submarine.

  He was charged with espionage, pled guilty and thereby avoided a lengthy trial. Darwin was sentenced to life in prison. Under Federal guidelines at that time, life was considered to be thirty years. Had he not passed away, Mr. Darwin would have been released in twenty-eight days.

  Kim Molenson, spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons, refused to comment other than to confirm Darwin’s passing.

  The White House released a statement from President Carrington.

  “It is with no regret that I hear of this infamous traitors passing. While patriots will disagree on policy, we can all agree in our contempt for those who betray this great country.”

  Darwin was buried in a pauper’s grave at the eighteenth century graveyard near Lower Cransden. Maintained by Canaan County, this site is used for the internment of indigents. Only this reporter, a staff member of Bailard’s Funeral Home and two cemetery workers, were present to observe Darwin’s burial.

  It is this reporter’s opinion that few will regret his passing.

  Chapter 5

  Nadim Wafi worried about the courts. He should have worried about the media. He was tried and convicted by the press long before the government brought him to trial. Glorified in radical Muslim web sites, he was vilified in the American media.

  Anti-alien sentiment rose in the country with each new terrorist attack.

  Jose Padilla allegedly wanted to set off a dirty bomb in Chicago. He was American born but Latino.

  Richard Reid, the son of an English mother and Jamaican father, converted to Islam and became the ill performing Shoe Bomber.

  Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, likewise failed as the Underwear bomber. He was a Nigerian national.

  Wafi’s act was the catalyst that detonated a backlash against all aliens in the country, legal and otherwise. Anyone who might have Semitic origins was suspect. Thus Muslim and non-Muslim alike suffered, as did many Hispanics who were mistaken for being Arabic, and ironically, so did numerous Jews.

  The bombing fueled a politically charged discussion about sealing America’s borders, the merits of a national identity card, and whether or not terror suspects deserved a public trial. In numerous surveys fifty to sixty percent of Americans supported summary execution for terror suspects.

  Rallies were held. Right wing activist groups waved signs reading, America for Americans and Deport All Aliens. Angry voices shouted hate. The only light moment being when a group of Native Americans formed their own protest across the street from the Nationalists rally on the mall in Washington, carrying signs that read, The Nationalists are right, now they should all repatriate!

  The political center moved toward the right. Congressmen and Congresswomen received spikes in e-mails and phone calls demanding the government act. Support for the war on terror rose in the following weeks. Itchy fingers followed the trigger of public sentiment.

  *

  Wafi was arraigned in July. Protesters encircled the federal building. They wanted to see Wafi dead. In that he was brought in by a van, they did not see him at all.

  Safely inside the courtroom, he entered a plea of not guilty. He was assigned a public defender, Justin Cornfield following his arrest. Large donations toward private legal counsel flowed in for Nadim’s, but the monies came from Arabic sources overseas and the Department of Home Land Security seized them claiming the funds came from charitable groups with suspected radical ties.

  Justin, though diligent and well meaning, lacked the resources of the Federal government. He thought a speedy trial posed the best chance for acquitting his client, or in the event of a conviction leave the best basis for an appeal.

  Speed would throw the prosecution off. Some of their evidence would not be ready. There was less time to rehearse witnesses. And if Wafi was convicted he could claim the pretrial prejudice as affecting the outcome of the trial.

  At his counsel’s recommendation Wafi refused to waive his right to a speedy trial. The federal prosecutor objected citing the complexity of the case, but the Judge ruled against him. The trial was set to begin in two weeks.

  Justin did not have the time to build an intricate defense. Sensing how the political wind blew, he intended to argue that Nadim Wafi was a victim of mistaken identity or the subject of a nefarious plot against Arab-Americans.

  *

  The Metropolitan Correctional Center is at the corner of Clark and Van Buren Streets in downtown Chicago. Operated by the Bureau of Prisons, familiarly known as BOP, it holds all federal prisoners for the Northern Illinois Judicial District. Attorney’s visiting their clients are required to check all packages and briefcases before going to the eighth floor visiting rooms.

  Justin sat opposite his client. The boy was nervous, as if he expected Cornfield to assault him. The guy ought to be nervous, Cornfield thought. He was facing life at a federal detention center, where locking you up and throwing away the key was more literal than metaphorical. He waited, saying nothing for a minute as he gathered his thoughts.

  “I didn’t do it!” the young man blurted out.

  “Great kid! It doesn’t matter.”

  “You do not care if I committed this crime?” Nadim asked incredulously.

  “No.”

  “But you are suppose to show my innocence!”

  “No,” Cornfield paused, choosing his words, “my job is to establish reasonable doubt, thereby winning a not guilty verdict.”

  “But the law, what about the law?”

  Cornfield shook his head, sadly. Here was another innocent who thought the legal system was about justice. How did you explain to someone caught up in its wheels, within wheels, that it was about playing the game? That it was often more important what papers your lawyer filed or didn’t file than what he said. That it could be of greater importance what motions were made regarding evidence, than what that evidence actually was? How could he tell this poor kid that guilty people often go free and too often innocent men are finely ground by the wheels of justice before being swallowed up by the penal system?

  “But you are my lawyer, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you believe me, as Allah is my oath, that I did not do this terrible thing?”

  “Yea, sure. I believe you, Nadim.”

  The lie slid easily off the lawyer’s lips He was accustomed to lying.

  Nadim looked plaintively at him with sad, brown, doe like eyes. Cornfield recalled seeing the same look in the eyes of a six-point buck, seconds before he dropped it with his thirty aught six. The kid was like that deer, and the federal prosecutor’s sight was targeted on the kid’s back.

  Chapter 6

  “What did Furgeson have to say?” Claus asked as he used a gold guillotine cutter to trim the end of a Cohiba cigar, one that actually came from Cuba, not the Dominican Republic.

  “Homeland is convinced that Wafi acted alone. They cannot find any oversea money transfers. The guy had enough cash in his bank account to pay his way, but not enough to raise suspicions.” Clemson flipped through the pages of the reports.

  “Anything else?”

  “Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms reported that the bomb was an ANFO device. It was 500 pounds of ammonia nitrate mixed with 6 gallons of diesel fuel. Nitromethane residue was found, but it was just trace amounts.”

  “Just traces?”

  “They found evidence Wafi ordered model airplane fuel from several supplies because it contained nitro. ATF assumes he just didn’t realize it was only
a 10% mix of nitro to methanol. If he had a supply of the pure stuff, he would have taken out a good size chunk of the apartment building.”

  Van de Meer lighted a wooden match. He permitted the sulfur to burn off before rolling the cigar slowly, above the tip of the flame.

  “What did he use for an igniter?”

  “ATF was as excited as those guys ever get, because they found the timing device in the field.”

  “And?” Claus asked slightly impatiently.

  “It was a digital watch that ran 12 and 24 hour time modes. They figure Wafi screwed up and set it for AM instead of PM.”

  “How the hell can they determine that?”

  “Inference. The watch was set for 5 am, who does a bombing them? Besides, it went off outside Wafi’s own building not downtown Chicago. That locked up the argument for ATF.”

  Claus blew small clouds of smoke while Clemson waited.

  “What do the guys at the Hoover building have to add?”

  “Nothing. They’re busy covering their tails because they’re responsible for the domestic stuff. This a blemish on their egos, afraid it might come up when Congress considers budget cuts. Anything they’ve got, they’re holding close to the chest.”

  “What do they think upstairs?” asked Furgeson.

  “Unofficially they’re delighted to see the FBI’s balls in the wringer,” Van de Meer spoke between puffs. “Officially, they are claiming this a one off attack by a disgruntled, loner.”

  “So is there anything for us to do?”

  “For now, we’ll just wait.”

  Clemson left, glad to be free of the smoky cloud Van de Meer generated.

  Chapter 7

  Eddie and Lisa took their children to the municipal beach. The August afternoon heat was enervating. While their children played in the water the couple sat under an umbrella on folding beach chairs.