Christ, it gave Fecteau a chill just thinking about them.
There was no doubt in Fecteau’s mind this prisoner had committed a truly heinous crime. Or series of crimes, a Jeffrey Dahmer type, a cold-blooded serial killer. He looked that scary. That’s why it gave Fecteau such satisfaction when the order came down that the prisoner was to be moved to solitary 44. Nothing more needed to be said. It was where they sent the hard cases, the ones who needed softening up. Not that solitary 44 was any worse than the other cells in Herkmoor 3 Solitary—all the cells were identical: metal cot, toilet with no seat, sink with only cold running water. What made solitary 44 special, so useful in breaking a prisoner, was the presence of the inmate in solitary 45. The drummer.
Fecteau and his partner, Benjy Doyle, stood on either side of the cell door, making no noise, waiting for the drummer to start up again. He’d paused, as he always did for a few minutes when a new prisoner was installed. But the pause never lasted long.
Then, as if on schedule, Fecteau heard a faint soft-shoe shuffle start up again inside solitary 45. This was followed by the popping sound of lips, and then a low tattoo of fingers drumming against the metal rail of the bed. A little more soft-shoe, some snatches of humming… and then, the drumming. It started slowly, and quickly accelerated, a rapid roll breaking off into syncopated riffs, punctuated with a pop or a shuffle, a never-ending sonic flood of inexhaustible hyperactivity.
A smile spread across Fecteau’s face and his eyes met those of Doyle.
The drummer was a perfect inmate. He never shouted, screamed, or threw his food. He never swore, threatened the guards, or trashed his cell. He was neat and tidy, keeping his hair groomed and his body washed. But he had two peculiar characteristics that kept him in solitary: he almost never slept, and he spent his waking hours—all his waking hours—drumming. Never loudly, never in-your-face. The drummer was utterly oblivious to the outside world and the many curses and threats directed at him. He did not even seem to be aware that there was an outside world, and he continued on, never varying, never ruffled or disturbed, totally focused. Curiously, the very softness of the drummer’s sounds were the most unendurable aspect of them: Chinese water torture of the ear.
In transferring the prisoner known as A to solitary, Fecteau and Doyle had had orders to deprive the man of all his possessions, including—especially including, the warden had made clear—writing instruments. They had taken everything: books, sketches, photographs, journals, notebooks, pens and inks. The prisoner was left with nothing—and with nothing to do but listen:
Ba-da-ba-da-ditty-ditty-bop-hup-hup-huppa-huppa-be-bop-be-bop-ditty-ditty-ditty-boom! Ditty-boom! Ditty-boom! Ditty-bada-boom-bada-boom-ba-ba-ba-boom! Ba-da-ba-da-pop! Ba-pop! Ba-pop! Ditty-ditty-datty-shuffle-shuffle-ditty-da-da-da-dit! Ditty-shuffle-tap-shuffle-tap-da-da-dadadada-pop! Dit-ditty-dit-ditty-dap! Dit-ditty…
Fecteau had heard enough. It was already getting under his skin. He gestured toward the exit with his chin, and he and Doyle headed hurriedly back down the hall, the sounds of the drummer dying away.
“I give him a week,” said Fecteau.
“A week?” Doyle replied with a snort. “The poor bastard won’t last twenty-four hours.”
12
Lieutenant Vincent D’Agosta lay on his belly, in a freezing drizzle, on a barren hill above the Herkmoor Federal Correctional and Holding Facility in Herkmoor, New York. Next to him crouched the dark form of the man named Proctor. The time was midnight. The great prison spread out in a flat valley below them, brilliantly illuminated by the yellow glare of overhead lights, as surreal an industrial confection as a giant oil refinery.
D’Agosta raised a pair of powerful digital binoculars and once again examined the general layout of the facility. It covered at least twenty acres, consisting of three low, enormous concrete building blocks, set in a U shape, surrounded by asphalt yards, lookout towers, fenced service areas, and guardhouses. D’Agosta knew the first building was the Federal Maximum Security Unit, filled with the very worst violent offenders contemporary America could produce—and that, D’Agosta thought grimly, was saying quite a bit. The second, much smaller area bore the official title of Federal Capital Sentence Holding and Transfer Facility. While New York State had no death penalty, there was a federal death penalty, and this is where those few who had been sentenced to death by the federal courts were held.
The third unit also had a name that could only have been invented by a prison bureaucrat: the Federal High-Risk Violent Offender Pretrial Detention Facility. It contained those awaiting trial for a small list of heinous federal crimes: men who had been denied bail and who were considered at especially high risk of escape or flight. This facility held drug kingpins, domestic terrorists, serial killers who had exercised their trade across state boundaries, and those accused of killing federal agents. In the lingo of Herkmoor, this was the Black Hole.