Sanctuary Read Free Page A

new life and learned to be reasonably content with his situation.
    But after only a few hours at Basal, he wondered if his determination to be content with nothing might be compromised here. If Ironwood was a prison that offered nothing, Basal appeared to be one that offered everything.
    Awareness of this hit him the moment he stepped from the van beyond the sally port and breathed his first lungful of mountain air. Having survived three deadly summers in stifling one-hundred-degree weather at Ironwood, he’d lost sight of how pleasurable clean, cool air could feel.
    The lawn wasn’t brown or gray, but green. The building itself was constructed in the shape of a massive cross—four wings to accommodate the inner workings of the prison. The outer walls were formed of beautiful stone blocks, and steps that led up to an arched entry might have been mistaken for the welcoming gateway to a picturesque cathedral, if not for the words stamped above bolted black iron doors that identified it as a correctional facility. Ironic, he thought, a prison built like a cathedral.
    A single motto embossed in the iron framework identified the prison’s ideology: An Eye for an Eye.
    “Let’s go.” The guard’s voice brought him down to earth, and he’d followed the man through the main entrance into Basal. The processing room was carpeted, and the furnishings were made of expensive wood with bowls of candies on the counter. The guards were dressed in smart black slacks and could have been mistaken for hotel concierges rather than trained security personnel overseeing hardened criminals.
    As the only transfer that morning, he’d met no other prisoners. After an hour of waiting in the comfortably furnished reception room, he began to wonder if Basal was actually a facility for the mentally ill. A new kind of sanitarium. Perhaps he’d been admitted to test his sanity. Other than the fact that it was a new experimental prison with better accommodations, he knew little about Basal.
    No one spoke to him other than to give him simple directions, another oddity compared to the constant orders of Ironwood guards. When he finally approached the counter and politely asked the woman if Basal was a maximum-​security prison, she’d simply informed him that the warden would explain everything when they met later that morning. Warden Marshall Pape personally saw to the welcoming and indoctrination of each new member, she said.
    Member, not inmate or prisoner.
    The entrance examination consisted of a thorough physical and a medical-history questionnaire administered by a white-coated physician in a small room that might be found in any doctor’s office. Basal’s version of a strip search.
    Dressed in new blue slacks and a tan, short-sleeved button-front shirt they’d given him, Danny now sat in an upper level waiting area that would make a fine addition to any downtown Los Angeles attorney’s firm. The six chairs were padded, the brown carpet was new. There were brass lamps on both end tables, a bookcase full of law books, three Ficus plants in off-white ceramic pots, and two recent copies of National Geographic magazine on the oak coffee table. A guard sat in a chair by the door, reading a copy of Sports Illustrated .
    Danny could have easily rushed him and taken him out before other guards responded, if he were predisposed to do so. They hadn’t taken the typical precautions of placing him in chained ankle or wrist restraints.
    Odd. Why?
    There were at least half a dozen objects in the room that someone with Danny’s training and skill could fashion into a weapon. The ceramic pots could be shattered and a shard used as a shank; the heavy wire harp used to support either lamp shade could be used as a lethal whip or a spike; the globe on two overhead dome lights as well as the glass from any of the incandescent bulbs would be as effective as razor blades in the right hands. His, for example.
    From what he’d seen so far, the only clear