SEVENTEEN
1981, LEE FEDERAL PENITENTIARY,
JONESVILLE, VIRGINIA
JONESVILLE, VIRGINIA
Cade stalked down the corridors of the
penitentiary. Ordinarily, the presence of a visitor would have
brought shouts, catcalls, even feces and flaming toilet paper from
the cells. Not this time. This time, the prisoners simply watched
until Cade passed by, and then they breathed a sigh of
relief.
The guards escorting Cade gave him a wide berth as
well. There was no outward sign of his anger. But you could feel
it, coming off him like heat.
In the pocket of his coat, orders for a full
pardon. Immediate release, citizenship privileges and a sizable
check drawn on the U.S. Treasury.
Everything the prisoner had asked for, in other
words.
A few hours earlier, Cade had watched it happen
from a TV screen. He saw the gap in the Secret Service’s line, the
perfect angle for the camera. The president used to be an actor. He
could never resist a good shot.
Leaving an opening for the cameras also left him
open to a bullet. He never thought it would happen.
You could see the surprise on his face, captured on
video, as the fire-cracker sound of the little handgun snapped
away.
Six shots. At least one direct hit. Out there in
broad daylight, where Cade was useless. It was 1963 all over
again.
Before long, the phone rang in the Reliquary. It
was still an old-fashioned landline then, directly wired to the
Oval Office.
The president’s chief of staff was on the other
end. The bullets were Devastator rounds. Lead azide, designed to
explode on impact. The press secretary was standing nearby, and
half his head was gone. “One was right next to the president’s
heart,” the man said.
He had an assignment for Cade.
Cade was flown to Jonesville in a special Air Force
transport and then driven in a limo with specially tinted
windows.
The press had heard the president was in bad shape.
The White House got a lock on that, spun a story about the man
joking with the surgeons. “I hope you’re all Republicans.”
In the meantime, Cade retrieved the only man who
could repair the damage—who could bring dead tissue back to
life.
Konrad was imprisoned in Jonesville. If he’d been
in any other facility, there would have been no hope. No way to get
him to the hospital in time.
Jonesville was no better and no worse than any
other high-security federal prison. Rape, drugs, murder. Cade
honestly had not thought about it when they deposited Konrad
there.
But when he got to the cell, he saw Konrad had
sampled every one of the facility’s offerings.
His face was scarred. There was a fresh bruise on
his temple. Kept from his equipment and his potions, Konrad had
even aged—his flawless skin beginning to pucker and warp.
Still, he stood with as much dignity as he could
manage; his dirty hair combed with water from the toilet and swept
back. He looked down at Cade, a baron in his mind if nowhere
else.
A day later, the president was back on TV Smiling.
Joking. The Devastator rounds failed to explode, the press was
told. Collapsed lung, nothing more. An inch from the heart. The
president was a lucky man.
His mind never really recovered from the long
period of clinical death, even though his body went on for years
after. Toward the end of his second term, he would sit in his
bedroom all day, still in his pajamas.
Cade remembered the look of triumph on Konrad’s
face when he arrived at the door of the doctor’s cell. He smiled,
revealing several missing teeth. But he looked no less happy.
“I told you, Cade,” he said. “There will always be
someone willing to pay for my services.”