Predator. Wilbur Smith

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СКАЧАТЬ – then at least made as tolerable as it can possibly be.’

      Bunter frowned anxiously. ‘You really think I need to get help, leave work, huh?’

      ‘Yes, I do.’

      ‘So then what am I going to do?’

      ‘Take it easy. Spend quality time with Betty while you still can. Listen, Ronnie, it won’t be long – less than a year, maybe less than six months – before Betty’s reached the point where she doesn’t recognize you, can’t hold any kind of a conversation, not even a rambling one, and there’s no trace left of the woman you fell in love with.’

      Bunter’s face crumpled: ‘Don’t … that’s awful …’

      ‘But it’s true. So make the best of the time you have. Look after yourself so you can still look after her. Promise me you’ll think about that, at least.’

      ‘Yeah, OK, I’ll promise you that.’

      ‘You’re a good man, Ron, one of the very best. Betty’s lucky to have you.’

      ‘Not half as lucky as I’ve been to have her. And now I’m losing her …’

      ‘I know …’ Dr Wilkinson said. ‘I know.’

      For decades the state of Texas has carried out its executions in the Texas Death House at the Walls Unit, Huntsville. Right up to 1998, that’s where Death Row was located, too. But then condemned men, Johnny Congo included, started finding ways to escape and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice determined that a more secure unit was required. Death Row was moved across to the Polunsky Unit in West Livingston, a supermax, ultra-high-security facility. No one escaped from there. The nigh-on 300 prisoners were held in solitary confinement and ate in their cells from a plate shoved through a ‘bean slot’ in the door. They exercised alone in a caged recreation area. The only physical contact they received was the strip searches they underwent whenever they left their cells. The regime was enough to drive a man crazy and there were some who chose to waive appeal opportunities and face execution early, just to escape from it.

      Johnny Congo’s execution process began at three in the afternoon of 15 November. He was not offered the choice of a condemned man’s final meal, nor would he be at Huntsville: that luxury had long since been abandoned. There was just a hammering on his cell door and a warder shouting, ‘Time to go, Johnny! Hands through the bean slot.’

      Every aspect of life at the Polunsky Unit was calculated to degrade and dehumanize the inmates. The procedure for leaving a cell was no exception. Johnny walked to the door. He got down on his knees. Then he shuffled around so that he had his back to the door and stretched his arms backwards till his hands pushed through the bean slot and emerged into the corridor outside. A pair of handcuffs was slapped around his wrists; then he pulled his arms back through the slot and got to his feet.

      ‘Step away from the door!’ the voice commanded.

      Obediently, Johnny walked back into the middle of the room with his hands now cuffed behind his back. Then he turned around again to face the door as it opened.

      Two warders came into the sixty-square-foot cell. One of them was white and almost as big as Johnny, with crew-cut ginger hair and sunburned skin on his face and forearms. He was carrying a Mossburger shotgun and there was a tense, jumpy look on his face that suggested he was just looking for a chance to use it.

      Johnny smiled at him. ‘What’s the point of pointing a gun at me today, ya dumb cracker? I’m already a dead man walking. Blow me away now, you’ll be doing me a favour.’

      Johnny turned his face towards the second warden, a portly, middle-aged African-American, his hair dusted with silver. ‘Afternoon, Uncle,’ he said.

      ‘Good afternoon to you, too, Johnny,’ Uncle said. ‘This is a hard time for you, I know that. But the calmer we can make it, the easier it will go, y’hear?’

      ‘Yeah, I hear you.’

      ‘OK then, what I’m going to do is prepare you for transit to Huntsville. So first I want you to stand with your feet about eighteen inches apart. You were in the service, right?’

      ‘Damn right, was a gunny sergeant in the Corps.’

      ‘A Marine, huh? Well, then I guess you know how to stand at ease.’

      Johnny obediently snapped into the position.

      ‘Thanks, man,’ Uncle said. ‘Now just stand still a minute while I fix these around your ankles.’

      Johnny did as he was told and was equally compliant as a belly chain was secured around his waist. Then his hands were released from their original cuffs and resecured in cuffs that hung from the chain. He was now restricted to the short, shuffling steps that the leg irons allowed and the minimal hand movements afforded him by the links between the handcuffs and the belly chain. As massive, as powerful and as intimidating as he was, Johnny Congo was now entirely helpless. The two warders who had come to his cell were now joined by more of their colleagues as they led him through the Polunsky Unit to the loading bay where his transport awaited him.

      All those years previously when Johnny had escaped from Huntsville, his associate Aleutian Brown had shot a warder called Lucas Heller in cold blood, with a bullet through the back of his skull. Johnny assumed that the warders around him now knew that. He waited for the first punch, or billy-club blow to hit him, knowing that they could do exactly what they wanted with him and he’d be completely unable to resist. But Uncle’s peaceful, civilizing presence must have been enough to inhibit any desire for violent retribution because they got to the loading bay without any disturbance. There wasn’t even any outcry from the other prisoners, giving a final send-off to a fellow inmate who was heading for the Death House. They were all alone in their silent cells, shut away behind the blank steel doors that lined the corridors. They had no idea that Johnny had ever even been in the unit, let alone that he was being taken away to die.

      Johnny Congo was placed in the back of an unmarked, white minivan belonging to the Offender Transportation Office and ordered to sit on one of the two grey, upholstered benches that ran along either side of what would normally be the passenger compartment. Then his ankles were chained to the floor.

      There were steel grilles on the windows and a more substantial one separating the passenger compartment from the driver’s seat. An armed guard sat opposite Johnny, dressed in tan slacks, a white shirt and a black protective vest. The guard didn’t say anything. He looked alert but at the same time relaxed, like a man who was good at his job, and trusted the other warders around him to do theirs, even in the presence of a known multiple killer. Johnny Congo didn’t say anything either, just looked at the guard, staring him down, determined to establish himself as the alpha male, even on the day he was to die.

      The details of Johnny Congo’s execution had been discussed all the way to the top of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. They fully realized that he was an extremely dangerous criminal who had already proved that he could escape from a maximum-security unit. His case had received a lot of media coverage and the closer the time came to his execution, the larger that would grow. Even as he left the Polunsky Unit there were a couple of TV news crews by each gate and a chopper was buzzing overhead. Another, much bigger media pack was clustered around the back gate of the Walls Unit, through which execution convoys were always admitted.

      The one thing they all wanted was a picture – any picture at all, no matter how blurred or grainy – of Congo СКАЧАТЬ