Matthew Reilly - Area 7

family reasons for the unexpected move.

He was still alive when they found him--no mean feat

considering the high-velocity hunting bullet lodged in his

chest. Woolf was immediately taken by helicopter to

Elaine County Hospital, one hundred and fifty miles away,

where emergency residents tried in vain to stem the blood

flow.

But the damage was too severe. After forty-five minutes

of emergency treatment, former United States Senator Jeremiah

K. Woolf died.

Sounds simple, doesn't it? A terrible hunting accident.

Like so many others that happen every year in this country.

That's what your government would have you believe.

Consider this: Blaine County Hospital records show

that a patient named Jeremiah K. Woolf was declared dead

in the emergency ward at 4:35 p.m. on the afternoon of February

6, 2001.

That is the only record of the incident that exists. All

other records of Woolf's examination at the hospital were

confiscated by the FBI.

Now consider this: on that very same day--February 6,

2001--on the other side of the country, at exactly 9:35 p.m.,

Jeremiah Woolf's Washington townhouse was destroyed in

an explosion, an explosion that killed his wife and only

daughter. Investigators would later claim that this blast was

caused by a gas leak.

The FBI believes Woolf--previously a vibrant young

senator, crusader against organized crime, and potential

presidential candidate--was the victim of an extortion

racket: leave us alone, or we'll kill your family.

This is, without a doubt, a government smokescreen.

If Woolf was being blackmailed, well, one has to ask: why? He had retired from the Senate ten months previously.

And if he was killed in a routine hunting accident, why were

6 Matthew Reilly

the records of his emergency room procedures at Elaine

County Hospital taken by the FBI?

What really happened to Jerry Woolf? At the moment,

we just don't know.

But consider this final point: owing to the time difference,

9:35 p.m. in Washington, D.C., is 4:35 p.m. in Alaska.

So at the end of the day, after all the talk of hunting accidents

and Mafia blackmail and faulty gas valves is cast

aside, one fact remains: at the exact same moment that former

United States Senator Jerry Woolf's heart stopped beating

in an emergency room in Alaska, his home on the other

side of the country exploded in a gigantic ball of flames ...

AREA 7

PROLOGUE

Protected Inmates' Wing,

Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary,

Leavenworth, Kansas,

20 January, 12:00 p.m.

IT HAD BEEN HIS LAST REQUEST.

To watch the inauguration ceremony on television.

Sure, it had delayed the trip to Terre Haute by an hour, but

then--so the powers-that-be at Leavenworth had reckoned--if

the condemned man's last request was reasonable, who were

they to refuse him?

The television threw a flickering strobelike glow onto

the concrete walls of the holding cell. Tinny voices came

from its speakers:

"... do solemnly swear..."

"... do solemnly swear..."

"... that I will faithfully execute the office of President

of the United States..."

"... that I will faithfully execute the office of President

of the United States..."

The condemned prisoner watched the television intently.

And then--despite the fact that he had less than two

hours to live--a smile began to spread across his face.

THE NUMBER ON HIS PRISON SHIRT READ: "T-77."

He was an older man, fifty-nine, with a round, weather

beaten face and slicked-down black hair. Despite his age, he

was a big man, powerfully built--with a bull neck and broad

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Matthew Reilly

shoulders. His eyes were a bottomless unreadable black and

they glistened with intelligence. He'd been born in Baton

Rouge, Louisiana, and when he spoke, his accent was

strong.

Until recently, he had been a resident of TWing--that

section of Leavenworth devoted to inmates who are not safe

among the general prison population.

Two weeks ago, however, he had been moved from

T-Wing to Pre-Transit--otherwise known as the Departure

Lounge--another special wing where those awaiting execution

stayed before they were flown out to Terre Haute Federal

Penitentiary in Indiana for execution by lethal injection.

A former civil war fort, leavenworth is a maximum

security federal prison. This means it receives only those offenders

who break federal laws--a class of individuals that

variously includes violent criminals, foreign spies or terrorists,

organized crime bosses, and members of the U.S. armed

forces who sell secrets, commit crimes or desert.

It is also perhaps the most brutal penitentiary in America.

But in that peculiar way of prisons the world over, its

inhabitants--men who have themselves killed or raped-- have, over the years, developed a strange sense of justice.

Serial rapists are themselves violated on a daily basis.

Army deserters are beaten regularly, or worse, branded on

their foreheads with the letter "D." Foreign spies, such as the

four Middle Eastern terrorists convicted of the World Trade

Center bombing in 1993, have been known to lose body

parts.

But by far the most ferocious treatment of all is reserved

for one particular class of prisoner: traitors.

It seems that despite all their own crimes, all their own

atrocities, the American inmates of Leavenworth--many of

them disgraced soldiers--still profess a deep love of their

country. Traitors are usually killed within their first three

days in the pen.

William Anson Cole, the former CIA analyst who sold

information to the Chinese government about an impending

Area 7

Navy SEAL mission to the Xichang Launch Center, the epicenter

of China's space operations--information which led

to the capture, torture and death of all six SEAL team

members--was found dead in his cell two days after he

had arrived at the prison. His rectum had been torn from

repeated violations with a pool cue and he had been strangled,

hog-style, with a bed leg tied across his throat--a

crude simulation of the Chinese torture method of strangulation

by bamboo pole.

Ostensibly, prisoner T-77 was in Leavenworth for

murder--or more precisely, for ordering the murder of two

senior Navy officers--a crime which in the U.S. military

carried the death sentence. However, the fact that the two

Navy officers he'd had killed had been advisers to the Joint

Chiefs of Staff elevated his crime to treason. High treason.

That--and his own previous high ranking--had earned

him a place in T-Wing.

But even in T-Wing a man isn't entirely safe. T-77 had

been beaten several times during his short residency there--

on two occasions, so severely that he'd required blood

transfusions.

IN HIS FORMER LIFE, HIS NAME HAD BEEN CHARLES SAMSON Russell and he had been a three-star Lieutenant General in

the United States Air Force. Call-sign: Caesar.

He had a certified IQ of 182, genius level, and as such

he had been a brilliant officer. Methodical and razor-sharp,

he'd been the ultimate commander, hence his call-sign.

But most of all ... patient, Caesar thought now as he

watched the flickering television screen in front of him.

The two men on the screen--the Chief Justice of the

Supreme Court and the President-Elect--were finishing

their duet. They stood in gray, wintry sunshine, on the West