"Okay, Justin. Stand away from the door."

The voice of a Deputy Dawg, reaching him over the intercom. Gray swung off the cot and saw two guards standing outside the glass wall of his cage.

He keyed the intercom microphone. "What's happening, dudes?"

"You know what the fuck is happening. It's time for your trip to the vet."

"Ain't that tomorrow?"

"It's today. Step to the rear of the cell."

Gray retreated. He hoped they bought into his act. He didn't want the Dawgs to know how he'd been counting the hours throughout a sleepless night and a restless morning, when his last bowl of oatmeal mush had been pushed through the slot in the door. He'd been too goddamned nervous to eat, so he'd flushed the shit down the toilet. Same for lunch. He was wired, man. He was stoked. Now, finally, the time was heretwo-thirty p.m. on Tuesday, May 13, his lucky day. His last day in Twin Towers.

The guards scoped him out, making sure he wasn't concealing some of his own pee or shit to toss at them. Some of the other no-hopers around here had pulled that stunt, but not Gray. To his way of thinking, it didn't make much sense to pick a fight with the monkey-strong hillbillies they recruited for this job. That was a fight he wasn't going to win.

The bolt on the cell door slid back. The guards entered, watching him.

"You know the drill," one of them said.

Gray stripped. He felt no humiliation about it. He liked showing off his tattoos. His whole body was a work of glorious fucking art.

They made him bend over and cough. One of them pushed a gloved hand up his asshole to probe for a shank. Gray figured the goddamned Dawg was getting off on it.

When they were done, Gray pulled on his yellow jumpsuit. "Find anything interesting?" he asked the hack with the rubber glove.

The guard told him to shut up.

"Just seems to me you guys have an unhealthy fixation with my cornhole, you know? I gotta wonder what's up with that."

This time both screws told him to shut up.

Like most of the deputies in Twin Towers, these two were young, in their early twenties, just a few years younger than Gray himself. Guard duty was assigned to new recruits to the Sheriff's Department, who had to put in three years in the jail system before they could go out on the streets.

They made a final check, looking inside his mouth like amateur dentists. Then they clapped on the wrist manacles and the leg shackles.

"Let's go, asshole," one of the guards snapped. "Don't want you to be late for your distemper shot."

"Yes, sir," Gray said. Yes, sir, you weak-ass, dumb-ass, lame-ass, pussy-ass, bitch-ass, punk-ass, candy-ass, dick-strokin' motherfucker, sir.

They led him out of the cell and down the hall of the prisoner-on-display area, past the row of glass cages and the blank, staring faces inside. Gray took a last look at the homeboys and assorted psychopaths preserved under glass. He gave them a silent good-bye.

He and the screws left the POD and went through sliding steel-reinforced doors to an elevator, which dropped them to ground level. At the rear gate sally port, under the eye of a closed-circuit TV camera scanning overhead, another guard ran a wand over Gray's body. The inspection was completed without incident, and then the hydraulic lock on the exterior door was retracted by remote control, and Gray was outside, in the loading bay, where a Dodge van waited. Large groups of inmates rode a prison bus, but for special runs the van was big enough.

Everything depended on how he handled the next stage of the operation. If he fucked up, he would be finished before he even got started.

Just outside the door he stopped short, blinking at the May sky. "Man, that sun feels sweet."

One of the guards gave him a light shove from behind. "Move."

He stayed put. "Just lemme breathe in some of that LA smog. Shit, my lungs've been achin' for it."

The guard reacted the way Gray knew he would. He slammed Gray between the shoulder blades, driving him forward. "I said move!"

It all happened fast then. Gray got his shackled feet all tangled up and fell heavily on his stomach, shouting a curse. The hacks told him to stop dicking around and get up. Gray grabbed hold of a fire hydrant for support and boosted himself to his feet. He patted down his jumpsuit to smooth out the wrinkles and brush off the dirt. He was talking about police brutality and prison reform. The deputies weren't listening.

"You goddamn move when we tell you to," one of them said irritably. "Jesus."

The two Dawgs handed over their charge to a pair of transportation deputies. To Gray, they were indistinguishable from the first two guys. Something about their blue-and-gold duds made all these losers look the same.

Gray allowed himself to be caged in the rear of the van.

The transportation deputies climbed into the front. "What'll it be today?" the driver asked. "Me, I'm feelin' a little bit country."

He cranked up the stereo, tuned to a hillbilly station, and the van pulled away.

In the rear compartment, Gray brushed his manacled hands together, feeling the tool he had hidden under his sleeve.

It was a screwdriver, a small one, slender, seven inches long, rusty, dirty, the most beautiful thing Gray had ever seen. Ten days ago he'd found it, when he was riding in the prison vaneither this van or another one just like it; like the Dawgs, the vans all looked the same. He'd noticed the screwie rolling on the floor near his shoes. How it had gotten there, he couldn't say. Maybe it had dropped out of a workman's toolkit while he was making repairs in the prisoner cage.

He had captured the screwie between his shoes, then slipped it under his sleeve when no one was looking. But he'd known there was no way to get it through the metal detector. So after being unloaded from the van, he had faked a stumble and dropped the screwie behind the fire hydrant. It had lain there ever since.

He had been patient. If he stumbled twice in a row, even the dumb-ass hayseed plowboys who pulled guard duty at Twin Towers might get suspicious. Ten days seemed long enough to ensure that the two deputies had forgotten all about his earlier mishap. Minutes ago, while getting to his feet and using the fire hydrant for support, he'd palmed the screwie and slipped it down his sleeve.

He took a look around. There was a large fish-eye mirror mounted behind him, which gave the Dawg riding shotgun a decent view of Gray. But the Dawg wasn't paying attention. He and the driver were involved in an intense conversation about the relative merits of NASCAR drivers.

"Tell you what," the driver was saying over the radio's blare, "there hasn't been one of 'em worth a damn since Dale Earnhardt died."

"Not even Dale Junior? You telling me you don't like Dale Junior? Everybody loves Dale Junior."

"Dale Junior can kiss my spotted ass."

Couple of good ol' boys. One of them would be dead soon. Maybe both. Gray smiled at the prospect. He'd never killed a bona fide redneck. He was looking forward to it.

He slipped his right hand inside his left sleeve and carefully removed the screwdriver, positioning it between his second and third fingers, flat across his palm.

When he held his hand palm downward, the tool was invisible.

Up front the debate continued. "I'm just saying, okay, maybe he's not as good as his old man, but he's still pretty damn good."

"Hell, my grandma could drive better than him, and she's ninety-two years old and blind as a mole."

"I don't see how you can say that about Dale Junior. Everybody loves Dale Junior."

"Dale Junior can kiss my spotted amp;"

Gray separated his hands, placing one on each knee.

Step one and step two had been accomplished.