Gregg Hurwitz - The Tower

HE didn't sleep well, but then he never did. He woke in the night and it seemed as if he had been awake all along. He tried to close his eyes and let sleep wash over him again, but it didn't.

Throwing back the covers, he swung his feet over the edge of the bed and rested his hands on his knees. The first light of morning showed through the blinds. Soft morning light, still dull around the edges. He shook his head, rubbed his eyes, and stood up.

The dim light cut him at the waist and shadowed the muscles in his stomach. He ran his hand hard across the back of his neck and stretched his shoulders. The greenness of his eyes was startling; they seemed to draw the dim light of the room into themselves. Green, flickering gems set in the dark silhouette of a face.

Picking up a thin chain from the nightstand, he examined it for a moment before putting it on. He had worn the chain for years, though he had long since removed the medical tags it once held.

He pulled the blinds up. It was 5:26 in the morning and the air was still a heavy gray. He went into the kitchen and took a healthy swig from a carton of milk. The house was impeccably neat, as if some divine hand had swept things into order. He placed the milk back in the refrigerator, pushing it gently into line with the other items.

The living room was adjacent to the kitchen, and he went and lay across the couch. The room seemed empty although it was filled with furniture. It was sparsely but well decorated.

He grabbed the remote from the glass table and flicked on the TV without looking at it. Blue light danced across his face and the hum of voices filled the room. He gazed at the ceiling, shut his eyes, and counted as he breathed. He was still for a long time. It was a forced restfulness.

Finally, he got up and went to the bedroom. Lying backward on the bed, he put his feet on the wall. He reached into a drawerful of papers in his nightstand. On top was a Phi Beta Kappa key. His dirty little secret. He turned it aside and dug deeper, pulling out a racquetball.

He squeezed it, then threw it at the wall, catching it in front of his face. The ball's rhythm relaxed him, the tick against the wall, the tock against his palm.

The television sounded from the other room. The sounds of six in the morning. "Tired of spending another night rearranging your sock drawer? Well, now's your chance! It's time to be social-but not in a way that'll make you uncomfortable, like in all those singles bars."

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Each time he caught the ball, he gave it a firm squeeze, pressing his fingertips into its soft surface. Tick. Tock.

"I never thought it would be so easy. I just pick up the phone and I have a whole network of friends to talk to."

He looked over at his phone. It was like the President's line. It usually rang out.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. He was into the four hundreds when he lost count. The ball became a blue blur, a line to the wall and back to his face. He threw and caught, threw and caught as the sun made its tedious ascent outside his window.

At about seven, he got up and went into the study. He pulled a pistol from the top-left drawer and felt its familiar balance in his hand. It was a Sig Sauer, government issue, a weapon he had learned to use and love in his Quantico days.

He went to the dining room and gazed out across his front yard. There was a difference in the air that he could taste, as if something was about to fall out of place.

He twirled the pistol around his finger, cocked it and uncocked it expertly with his thumb, and twirled it again. A mail truck made its way slowly up the street, stopping at each house. It passed his mailbox without slowing and went to the next.

Pulling a chair around the table to face the window, he sat down, leaning back so two of the chair's legs tilted off the ground. The early morning joggers were out: a tired middle-aged man, a mother with her daughter, a couple with a dog.

He played with his pistol almost unconsciously, turning it over in his hand, spinning it around his finger, catching it in his palm. Sometimes he held it at arm's length, sometimes he held it on his lap. But he always held it well.

The stream of light through the front window climbed his body slowly as the sun rose. Just before it reached his eyes, he got up and walked back into the study, pulling a maple gun case from the drawer. He slid the pistol back into the velvet lining. It fit snugly. His fingers perched lightly on the case's lid as his gaze lingered on the gun. He slammed the case shut.

There was a name emblazoned on its brass plate: JADE MARLOW.

T H E T O W E R was magnificent, rooted beneath the swelling waves and standing proudly above the inconsistency of the water. It rose firmly and elegantly, layered with stone over metal, tall and sleek in the salty breeze.

Nicknamed "Alcatraz II" by law enforcers and government officials, and "The Boat Pokey" by inmates across the country, the Peter Briggs Federal Penitentiary was famous for one reason and one reason alone: the Tower. The Tower was conceived over a table covered with cigarette butts and half-drunk cups of coffee at 3:32 in the morning. It had been an election year. Peter Briggs had won the election.

The regular prison, Maingate, framed the end of a peninsula by San Francisco that jutted into the Pacific. It contained the expendable criminal element, those with life sentences doubled back over life sentences. Yet the worst of the worst had a special distinction even within Maingate.

The Tower was fifty yards offshore at low tide. Only about eighteen feet in diameter, it housed twelve levels of prison units, two cells on each floor. It sat within an inlet cut into the craggy walls of the peninsula. When the tide rose, it inched up the side of the structure until only the last two levels peeped out above the water.

A peripheral fence blocked the prison from the vast expanse of sea beyond, its enormous posts grounded with concrete plugs in the ocean floor. Access to the Tower could be gained only by boat, and only from the heavily guarded grounds of Maingate. The guards shuttled back and forth on speedboats like little insects busy at work.

The Tower was constructed to be the most airtight security facility in the world. Like anything built with such exuberance, it had a few design flaws-a few places where overzealousness lapsed into an arrogant carelessness. However, for the most part, the Tower was what it was designed to be: a steel trap.

Level One was used for storage only, so the second level was the lowest floor that housed prisoners. Because it was the darkest, Level Two was referred to as "the Dungeon." The loudest prisoners were kept there so their noise wouldn't disturb the guards.

The first eight levels were always underwater, and the only natural light they received filtered through the steel bars from the floors above. The twelfth level remained empty, for security reasons. Despite the tremendous precautions, the warden felt Level Twelve was just too close to freedom and the guards above.

A large fan, protected by a steel gate, was situated underneath the first level. Piping ran beneath the ocean floor from the mainland, drawing air to feed the fan. But the sluggish movement of the blades was not enough to sweep the musk from the air. Only the top four levels had vents, though those on Level Nine were never opened, as they were almost always beneath the ocean's surface.

A single carbon gaslight was encased in bulletproof glass on every other level, slightly illuminating the metal walls. These bleak lights trailed through the dimness of the Tower, making it seem as thickly claustrophobic as a mine shaft. At night, they were turned off.