The prison bus took a long, wide arc, stop-starting through the 
leafiness of Eltham, Catford, Dulwich. They passed parks where he 
saw families sitting in the sun, eating ice-cream and playing 
amongst the trees. The van was an austere ten degrees, a bliss 
after the stifling heat of Wormwood Scrubs. But Keagan found he 
resented it, resented not being able to feel what they were feeling. 
He held a hand up to the window and felt the light on his skin, 
warming it. In a few moments it had become uncomfortable and he 
withdrew it, feeling like something cold and dead that could not 
withstand the sun. He realised their route was the reverse of his own 
journey to Wormwood Scrubs, and for a moment wondered whether 
they were being returned to HMP Brixton. But again, they slowed 
outside and waited for another couple of prisoners to arrive. In this 
manner they travelled west past Wandsworth and Feltham. There 
were six of them in the back of the bus now, in various attitudes of 
hope, fear, calm, upset. 


Throughout most of London the traffic had choked them in on all 
sides, offering time for contemplation but mimicking in its 
sluggishness the walk a man might take from his cell to the 
mealroom. That changed when they joined the M4—suddenly the 
world, which had seemed almost too much for Keagan to 
comprehend before, now raced at him, past him at lunatic speed, so 
that he had to sit down and look at the floor of the bus for a little 
while to regain his senses. The City gave way to towns, and the 
towns gave way to villages. Bagshot, Camberley, Hartley Whitney, 
North Walton, Sutton Scotney. Then, the world ended. 


As they drove, the buildings fell away, crumbling into barns and 
tumbledown cottages, and then Salisbury Plain opened up before 
them, a vastness of unbounded heathland, green underneath blue. 
A sign, wind-worn, screamed: 


WARNING TO PUBLIC 
DANGER FROM UNEXPLODED MORTARS AND BOMBS 
MINISTRY OF DEFENCE 


They drove on in the face of this stark warning—Keagan had 
expected to feel the road disintegrating into gravel or dirt track 
beneath the bus's tyres, but it remained smooth and silent as they 
glided between shallow hills punctuated by the odd weather-worn 
stub of a tree. Military roads, he realised, maintained regularly in the 
face of regular use by tracked vehicles. 


Finally, buildings loomed out of the landscape, irregular, crumbling 
squares of brick—no windows, no doors, just skeletons standing 
abandoned in the evening sun. It reminded Keagan of images he 
had seen of Chernobyl—abandoned villages dissolving into the wild. 
The silence, other than the purr of the bus's engine, was absolute— 
almost frightening for those raised in the heart of London. Far in the 
distance, camo'd 4x4s would occasionally be glimpsed passing 
between hedgerows on a far-distant road, then they were gone. 


"What kind of prison is this?" asked the younger Belmarsh inmate, 
running a hand over his almost-shaven head as he looked out of the 
window with wide eyes. 


The wild-eyed young man from Wormwood Scrubs fixed him with a 
glare. "Does it matter?" he asked angrily. "Would you want to go 
back? We've sold our fucking souls: we did something, signed 
something, that gives them jurisdiction over us—that's how they 
prosecuted us in the first place—so it doesn't matter what we do." 
He raised his voice again. "So why not join the fucking military death 
camps or whatever the hell this is? We're already bought and sold 
under admiralty law, declared lost beyond the seas and—”. 


The jowly older inmate with the wet cough spoke for the first time; 
he'd been sitting with his head down, breathing heavily. "Kid. Shut 
up." As he said this he lifted his head, almost infinitesimally, so a 
chink of white was visible at the edge of one eyelid. The kid looked 
for a moment like he'd seen a scorpion—his lip curled back in fright, 
turned just as quickly to a defiant sneer. But he said nothing more. 


The facility was unimposing until you came close enough to realise 
how far it soread—a single-storey complex picked out in light beige 
and blue-sprayed walls, occupying the far edge of the abandoned 
village in a great crescent. There seemed to be no external fence or 
wall, but the walls were solid—great poured concrete chunks, 
curving inwards slightly as they rose. The bus finally shuddered off- 
road and onto the dirt vehicle yard, and Keagan saw the criss- 
crossed tracks of countless other vehicles, churning up great ruts in 
the soil. Here, at least, the bus stopped, and a coterie of man in dark 
shirts and trousers and blue patrol caps came out to meet them. 
Obviously not army, thought Keagan, though their posture and 
bearing was military. They wore clearance cards around their necks 
and pistols in chest holsters—further evidence if he needed it that 
this was no prison. In prisons no guard would be equipped with a 
firearm for fear that a prisoner would jump him, grab it and begin 
shooting. Which begged the question—why did these men need to 
be armed? 


They stopped in a hemicircle around the back of the bus—only then 
did the driver get out and open the rear of the vehicle. Keagan and 
the others emerged, blinking, into the suddenly chill evening air, the 
sun now close to silhouetting the facility. 


"Okay, gentleman," said one of the blue-capped men, "this'll be your 
home for the next month. If you were expecting your personal 
belongings to be transferred from your previous facility, sorry to tell 
you, but those were incinerated about five minutes after they were 
turned over to us." Angry mutters. "You'll get a full orientation soon 
enough, but | should probably warn you, this isn't work release as 
you know it. Until the end of your stay, you're still considered 
inmates. You've probably gathered this place doesn't operate on any 
of the normal frequencies. That means no visiting rights, no 
communication rights—no human rights of any kind, as a matter of 
fact." 


"| told you," said the twitchy youth. "Didn't | fucking say? Death 
camps." 


"You signed up for it," retorted Blue Hat, "I'd make the best of it if | 
were you." 


The blue-hats closed ranks, squeezing off the exit of the bus. With 
two blue-hats on each side the inmates were marched through the 
threshold—a heavy, apparently bomb-proofed archway with a series 
of steel blinds, each closing after they moved through, concrete 
rough and cold underfoot. Keagan looked up at them, visualising the 
motors that actuated them within the concrete protrusions above the 
blinds, probably serviced from a room on the other side of the walls. 
That naturally led him to wonder what else might be on the other 
side, and by the third chamber he had worked out that the smooth 
dark panels recessed into the walls on either side were mosily likely 
one-way viewing panes. Safe to assume, then, that they would be 
under surveillance at all times. The fortress-like construction of the 
facility added to the puzzle of the guns—admittedly, the prisoners 
being inducted in the programme were all lifers, many multiple 
murderers. But not even Belmarsh was built like this—the floors 
sloped downwards as they entered and Keagan realised the bulk of 
the facility must be underground. 


The lead blue-hat—the one who had spoken first—guided the 
prisoners and their escorts through a series of still downward- 
sloping corridors, coloured lines on the walls branching off at each 
junction. Overhead, the lights were set into the ceiling, fluorescent 
circles behind textured plastic. A series of imposing pneumatic doors 
hissed and parted as they moved deeper into the facility, in each 
case opened by a touch from Blue Hat's keycard on the adjacent 
wall. Good to know, said that little voice in Keagan's head. At the 
very least a senior security guard has clearance to walk from the 
main gate all the way in—or out again. 


"This is decon," Blue Hat announced as they entered a larger area 
segmented by PVC strip curtains. One by one the prisoners filed 
through, and were made to surrender their uniforms. Some of the 
prisoners objected to being stripped naked and were roughly 
divested of their garments by the blue-hats, who tossed them in a 
wheeled bin—no doubt to be incinerated with their other 
possessions. Keagan rolled off his red top, signifying Basic status in 
Wormwood Scrubs, and kicked his trousers into a corner. Let the 
guards pick it up if they wanted. Determined not to show any sign of 
discomfort or modesty, he locked his fingers behind his head and 
moved through a gap in the clear plastic divider held open by a 


guard. He was met by a deluge of shockingly cold water with a 
strong antiseptic tang, as though someone had emptied a bucket 
over his head. Gasping for air he stumbled into the next section and 
was blasted with heated air, pumped out of vents in the floor and 
walls. He emerged, as the others did, disorientated and with a foul 
taste in his mouth. He noticed, however, that the observers had 
emerged from their viewing decks and were now mingling freely with 
the guards—men in white coats over civilian garb, making notes and 
ticking each prisoner off as they were admitted to the larger area on 
the other side of the decontamination unit. 


Keagan was handed a starchy orange jumpsuit with an 
alphanumerical identifier on the nametag; his bore the legend 
'‘D-8671'. Once Keagan had donned this, together with a 
distressingly de-elasticated undergarment and a battered-looking 
pair of plimsolls, he was deemed ready to go and moved to the side 
of the room closest to the door. One by one his fellow inmates were 
issued with similar accoutrements—to varying degrees of expressed 
satisfaction—and finally the group was moved off once again. 


The coloured lines had separated, one at a time, and now their only 
guide was a dull orange stripe that terminated at a heavy steel door, 
built like a meat safe; the last of three they had passed on this last 
corridor. 


"Here's where you'll eat, shit, and sleep," said Blue Hat reassuringly 
—no keycard this time; instead, a matte black key turned in a 
traditional Yale lock resulted in a loud click and a persistent 
electronic buzz as the door opened. Inside were modest-sized 
residential quarters: to the left a square room, empty except four 
rows of tables, no different to the ones in Wormwood Scrubs' 
mealroom; to the right showers and toilets—the lack of cubicles 
making it clear this was not intended to be comfortable 
accomodation—and straight ahead a square room, the walls lined 
with three-level bunks. The walls had once been light blue, but had 
since faded to grey and been adorned with years of smudged 
scribbles, ringed at the top by an unhealthy damp yellow stain. 


There were others already there—a little over a dozen, mostly sat on 
their bunks or at the benches, faces sagging and grey like the walls. 
Keagan recognised many of them from Wormwood Scrubs— 


Cameron Moat, Travis Lemure, Marv Hagman, all lifers, all 
enhanced or repeat offenders. Others he didn't know—black and 
white, mostly young but some older inmates. A face leaned out from 
behind a post to look at the new arrivals—chubby, with piggy eyes 
and short dark hair. Patrick Goettsch. Those hooded eyes widened 
slightly when he saw Keagan, and he reached across to tug on 
Marv's orange jumpsuit. Marv looked across, then up at the 
doorway. He fixed Keagan with a steady glare and shook his head 
slightly. The message: this man is still under my protection. No way 
to know yet, of course, how much respect—if any—Marv had 
established here in the last few days, and certainly no sense starting 
anything with Blue Hat and his friends present. Keagan shrugged, 
offishly, and made his way to a spare bunk. 


"Okay," said Blue Hat. "This will be the last batch of inmates for this 
shift.” 


"Fucking hallelujah!" someone shouted. 


Blue Hat chuckled. "Sorry we kept you waiting. I'm sure you want to 
get to work. There's an orientation in 30 minutes with Dr Skinner." 


The blue-hats turned and left, and again Keagan heard the click- 
buzz while the door was opened. He had a pretty good idea what 
was making that sound, and it only deepened the mystery of this 
place. He lay on the bunk, hands behind his head. The younger 
Belmarsh inmate with the shaved head walked over. 


"Hey, man, you mind taking the bottom bunk? I'm claustrophobic, 
man, | can't stand having someone above me." 


Keagan thought for a moment. "I actually do mind. | was here first 
and don't feel like moving. But I'll give you points for looking for 
sympathy rather than trying to intimidate me." 


The other inmate sighed and flopped down on the bottom bunk. 
"Can't blame a guy for trying." 


"You came with that other guy," said Keagan. "Older, face like a 
bulldog. What's his deal?" 


"That's Cancer Herrigan," said the Belmarsh inmate. "At least, that's 
what we call him. Was a big deal in the Irish mob in London, years 
ago. Been inside for decades. Scary fucker." He lowered his voice at 
the end, as though frightened Cancer would hear him. 


"Why's he called Cancer?" asked Keagan. 


"You've heard the cough. Pancreatic. | heard he only has two years 
to live." 


"He doesn't want to die in prison." 


The other inmate nodded. "Only he can't stop killing people long 
enough to make parole. Guess he thought this was his only shot at 
dying at home." 


"And you?" asked Keagan. 


"Me?" said the shaven-headed inmate. "I'm no-one, believe me. | 
don't wanna make trouble. Frankly, | signed up to get away from 
guys like Cancer. | shouldn't even have gone to Belmarsh." 


"What did you do?" 


"Just plugged two guys who woulda killed me, man. Self-fucking- 
defence. They shoulda given me a medal." The bunk shifted as the 
skinhead rolled over to look at the wall. 


Keagan said nothing. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the 
others squabble over bunk spaces—the twitchy kid had none of the 
Belmarsh inmate's finesse and was aggressively staking his claim to 
a top bunk currently occupied by Travis Lemure. Travis simply 
ignored his demands until the kid had practically climbed on top of 
him, then kicked him off the bunk with a foot to the groin. The kid, 
doubled over in pain, crawled onto the bottom bunk, making odd 
muttering noises to himself. Another one to keep an eye on, thought 
Keagan. 


With no way to mark time in prisoner accommodation other than the 
daylight trickling through the narrow slits at the top of the room, it 
seemed like hours until the blue-caps returned and the man who 


had addressed them before called for all twenty prisoners to file out 
into the corridor. No less than ten blue-capped men awaited them, 
together with something new—a man dressed in grey fatigues 
beneath a tactical vest, face obscured by a reflective visored riot 
helmet and carrying a semi-automatic MP7 with an extended stock. 
He stood a distance behind the escort and followed them. There's 
your answer to what happens if someone grabs a pistol, thought 
Keagan; everyone gets mowed down by Mister Machinegun over 
there. Which means, of course, that the guns aren't intended to keep 
us in line—there's something else in this facility so dangerous that 
it's less risky to have staff armed at all times in the presence of cop 
killers and serial murderers.