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THE PRISON LOOKED e than a place where er for offenses co the uniforuard towers, but there were two staggered twelve-foot-tall security fences, arh surveillance cameras to keep an electronic eye on virtually every millimeter of the place Situated at the northern end of Fort Leavenworth, the United States Disciplinary Barracks sat next to the Missouri River on nearly forty rolling, forested Kansas acres, a reen hand It was the only maximum-security military prison for males in the country

America’s foremost military prison was called the USDB, or the DB for short The Leavenworth federal penitentiary for civilians, one of three prisons on the grounds of Fort Leavenworth, was four ional Correctional Facility—also for military prisoners—there was a fourth privately operated prison in Leavenworth, which raised the total in the four prisons to about five thousand The Leavenworth Touris to capitalize on any bit of notoriety to lure visitors to the area, had incorporated the prison angle into its promotional brochures with the phrase “Doin’ time in Leavenworth”

Federal dollars rolled through this part of Kansas and jureen paper locusts, boosting the local econo the coffers of businesses that provided the soldiers with smoked ribs, cold beer, fast cars, cheap hookers, and prettyin between

Inside the DB were about four hundred and fifty prisoners In a Special Housing Unit, or SHU The majority of in and their sentences were long

Approximately ten prisoners were kept in solitary confine ineneral population There were no bars on the doors; they were just solid metal, with a slot at the bottoh This also allowed for shackles to be fitted like a new pair of iron shoes when a prisoner needed to be transported somewhere

Unlike at some other state and federal penitentiaries around the country, discipline and respect were deles between the incarcerated and their watchers There was the rule ofheld here were “Yes sir,” closely followed by “No sir”

The DB had a death rohich currently sat a half dozen convictedthe Fort Hood killer It also had an execution chamber Whether any of the death row inmates would ever see the lethal injection needle would be soes could deteral fees from now

Day had long since passed to night and the lights fro off from the nearby Sherman Airfield were almost the only evidence of activity It was quiet now, but a violent stor in fro up in Texas was barreling toward the Midwest like a brakeless freight train It would soonresults The entire area was already hunkering down in anticipation

When the two ra frontsproportions, with jagged lightning slicing sideways across the sky, rain bucketing down, and winds that seeth or reach

The power lines went first, snapped like string by tu trees Then down ca roads The nearby Kansas City International Airport had been shut down ahead of ti out the storround instead of up in that maelstrom

Inside the DB the guards made their rounds, or sipped their coffees in the break roo scuttlebutt of no iht anything of the storm outside since they were safely inside a fortress of brick and steel They were like an aircraft carrier confronted by gale-force winds and heavy seas It ht not be pleasant, but they would easily ride it out

Even when the regular power failed as both transfor the prison into momentary darkness, no one was overly concerned The enerator automatically kicked on, and that machine was inside a boround power source of natural gas that would never run out of juice This secondary syste more than cause jittery fluorescents and a few pops on surveillance cameras and computer monitors

Guards finished their coffees and ossip, while others slowly made their way down halls and around corners and in and out of pods,sure all ell in the world of the DB

What finally got everyone’s attention was the total silence that caenerator with the endless supply of energy in the bo cough, and then simply died

All the lights, cah some of the surveillance cameras had battery backups and thus reent cries and the sounds ofCohts were snatched from holders on leather belts and powered up But they provided only er illumination

And then the unthinkable occurred: All the automatic cell doors unlocked This was not supposed to happen The system was built such that whenever the power failed, the doors autoood for prisoners if the power failure was due to, say, a fire, but that’s the way it was, or the way it was supposed to be However, now the guards were hearing the clicks of cell doors opening all over the prison, and hundreds of prisoners were e into the hallways

There were no guns allowed in the DB Thus the guards had only their authority, wits, training, ability to read prisoners’ moods, and heavy batons to keep order And now those batons were gripped in hands that were becoly sweaty

There were SOPs, or standard operating procedures, for such an eventuality, because the military had procedures for every eventuality The Army typically had two backups for all critical iteenerator was considered a fail-safe However, now it had failed Now it fell to the guards to maintain cooal was to secure all prisoners The secondary goal was to secure all prisoners Anything else would be deemed an unacceptable failure by anywith them stars and bars would fall off like parched needles from a Christmas tree still up in late January

Since there were farall of them involved a few tactics, the e open central areas, where they would bewell for about fiveelse happened that woulddeeper into the Aruard or prisoner—tighten

“We’ve got shots fired,” shouted a guard into his radio “Shots fired, undetermined location, unknown source”