The Sanctuary

2

AT THE PRECISE moment that Renee Gilmore heard those fateful words, Danny Hansen sat in a waiting room outside the warden’s office in the Basal Institute of Corrections and Rehabilitation, southeast of Wrightwood, just west of Interstate 15. The transfer from Ironwood State Prison had started at 2:00 a.m. and taken seven hours, fewer than three of which were spent in the transport van, or “the chain” as some called it.

He’d followed instructions without misstep as he always did. He was polite, spoke only when spoken to, stayed to himself, and arrived a few hours earlier in relatively good spirits. Three years of incarceration in the overcrowded California prison had convinced him that he truly was an outlaw, on the inside as much as on the outside. He would do his time as required by the law, but in his heart he still lived beyond any law that conflicted with the greater truth.

The system liked to say that an inmate had the choice of doing either hard time or smooth time. Danny had done neither. He was doing his time. Nothing more, nothing less.

They said that in prison it’s better to fight and gain respect than to run and lose your dignity. They said that steering clear of trouble has a price. That the fight picks you—you don’t pick the fight.

All true, of course, but Danny didn’t care about the injustice inflicted upon him and didn’t try to change the convict code that administered it. He took his abuse in stride, like a concrete wall, without retaliating and without suffering more than one shallow wound from a shank in his side. Compared to the physical and mental wounds he’d suffered in the Bosnian War, the abuse at Ironwood had been wholly tolerable.

The suffering of other inmates preyed upon by the hustlers and gangbangers who ran the prison, however, had been much more difficult to stomach.

And even more, his separation from the one person he loved more than his own freedom tore through his heart like a strand of barbed wire. In so many ways, Renee was his life. Concrete walls stood between them, but they lived together as one in his mind. Her voice whispered in his ears without end.

If something bothered Renee, it bothered Danny. If bedbugs were overtaking her world, they were consuming his. If she preferred grapefruit over oranges, he wanted two of them, no matter how bitter they tasted. If she wondered why the world was upside down, so did he, always with a gentle reply and a nudge toward a less fretful analysis, but he could never simply dismiss her concerns. They were her truth.

She could not know how desperately he missed her, how her safety and happiness consumed him, how deep the sorrow of their separation ran through him. If she knew the full extent of his concern for her, she would only suffer more than she already did, because Renee loved him more than she knew how to love herself.

She paced through his heart every waking moment, occupied with inconsequential concerns that meant nothing to him except that they were hers. The rest of him was doing time in a society called prison, hidden away from the rest of the world. A totally self-contained culture, as alien as Mars to those who lived on the outside; a universe unto itself with a whole different set of rules and values. As members of this subculture, inmates became a new kind of creature. But what kind?

Ninety percent of all those incarcerated would reenter society, as they should. If all those incarcerated were kept behind bars, a full half of America’s population would be in prison. The real question was, in what condition would a person released from prison emerge? Would he be a properly punished and reformed person ready to tackle life’s challenges while following the rules, or an embittered, hardened person armed with new, more violent survival skills?

The puppies, as Danny sometimes thought of those called newbies, worried him the most. You could slap a puppy for jumping up on your leg and peeing on your foot in their exuberance to experience life, much like you could slap an eighteen-year-old for possession of pot. But put the puppy in a cage with raging bulldogs for a few years and they would come out far less playful and far more apt to bite.

In the American prison system, the weak were often forced to become strong to survive the preying wolves, too often becoming wolves themselves. Nonviolent offenders often learned violence; young prisoners who had been caught on the wrong side of their pursuit of pleasure often learned that aggression and anger were required to survive. Some called the American prison system a monster factory, an environment that far too often fractured those who entered it.

At Ironwood, Danny had expected nothing because little was offered. He’d learned to live in a quiet place deep in his mind, compromised only by the intense suffering of others whom he was powerless to help. Unlike most prison puppies, Danny had embraced his 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 indicators that Basal was a high-security facility were the series of locked doors that separated the administrative wing from the rest of the prison, the twin heavy-gauge doors at the entrance, and the three impassable perimeter fences around the entire compound.

The warden’s door opened. A tall man with a balding head, dressed in dark brown slacks and a white shirt, filled the frame and stared at Danny with drooping blue eyes. This was the warden. Marshall Pape.

Danny stood. The man’s cheekbones were high, hardening his long face, but otherwise he looked like any middle-aged executive who might be seen entering or leaving a bank.

“Welcome to hell,” Pape said.

His eyes held on Danny for a long beat before a smile brightened his face.

“So to speak. Please. Come in.”

Danny dipped his head and walked into the room. The door closed quietly behind him and an electric latch fell into place, sealing him off from any attempt to get out using the warden as a hostage.

Three red camera lights winked at them from the corners of the ceiling. Whoever had constructed this new facility had surely covered all the bases using less conventional and far more sophisticated measures than in older prisons. For all Danny knew, there was a gun trained on his head at that very moment, waiting for him to grab a pen on the warden’s cherrywood desk in an attempt to stab him.

The office was large and plush, with dark wood-paneled walls, bookcases, globes, several lamps, and two large family portraits. These showed a gray-haired woman, presumably the warden’s wife, and two adolescent children, a boy and a girl. A sheer lace curtain covered the room’s only window.

“Have a seat, Danny.” The warden’s voice was low and soothing. He indicated one of three high-backed leather chairs positioned opposite his desk. “Just so you know, this interview is being watched and recorded. Do you have a family?”

“No, sir.”

“No?” He looked at one of the family portraits. “That’s too bad. Everyone needs a family. There’s nothing more important in this world than loving and being loved by your family. It’s why I do what I do, you know. To keep families like mine safe. Society demands this from me, and I would give my life for it.”

Danny said nothing.

The warden slowly opened a file folder, studied Danny for a moment, then settled into his chair.

“Let’s start at the beginning, if you don’t mind. Do you know how many people in the United States are incarcerated, Mr. Hansen?”

“No.”

“According to the latest statistics, one out of every hundred adults in America is behind bars at any given time. Purely by the numbers, the average adult male in this country stands a fifteen percent chance of being imprisoned sometime during his life. Does that strike you as high?”

He’d heard it was ten percent. “It does.”

“Yes, it does. And thank you for being so direct in your responses. I appreciate that.”

Danny nodded.

“The sheer number of people imprisoned in this country becomes truly alarming when you consider that, although the Unites States makes up only five percent of the world’s population, it has twenty-five percent of the world’s prison population. On average, our incarceration rate is five times the rest of the world. Per capita, we have six times the incarceration rate of Canada, twenty times that of Japan. That’s a seven hundred percent increase since 1970. Few realize it, but the United States is fast becoming a penal colony. Does this alarm you?”

“It does.”

“Bear with me, because I need you to understand where I’m headed with all of this. One out of every thirty-one men in the United States today is either in jail today or under the supervision of corrections. The recidivism rate in California is seventy percent. As you know, the gyms at Ironwood are no longer used for recreation but to house hundreds of bunk beds, an attempt to handle more than twice the number of prisoners the facility was designed to hold. And through it all you have to ask yourself one question: why? Why are so many people going to prison, Danny? And why are seventy percent of those released being dragged back into prison?”

It sounded like a rhetorical question, so Danny said nothing.

“Go ahead, take a stab at an answer.”

“Because they exit the system more hardened than when they entered it,” Danny said. “Survival in the system requires adaptation to the environment. It’s only human.”

“Only human, very good. It’s America’s biggest tragedy. We have these manufacturing plants called prisons that accept deviants, turn them into hardened criminals, and send them back out into the world to wreak havoc. It’s like boot camp for storm troopers.”

“Not everyone who comes out—”

“Shut up, Danny.”

The man’s tone surprised him. But then Pape smiled. “This is a nice prison, you’ll see that, but we have rules. One of those rules is that you will speak to me only when I ask you to. It may seem harsh, but it’s one of the ways we maintain order. Fair?”

“Fair.”

The warden continued. “Now, not all those who enter the monster factory come out as hardened criminals. But you, being a man of the cloth, surely realize that we are all monsters in need of help, don’t you?”

Danny remained silent, not sure if he was expected to respond.

“That was a question, Danny. You may respond.”

“I would say everyone needs help.”

“Because we are all monsters?”

“I wouldn’t necessarily go that far.”

Pape kept his eyes steady above a gentle smile. “Then maybe you’ll learn that in here. To the earlier point, you’re right. A third of those who leave prison never return to it. But that leaves two-thirds who yield to the machinery and come out ready to prey on the weak. It’s not society’s intention, naturally, but it’s real, nonetheless. You have to wonder why society doesn’t rise up in protest and insist the government close down these manufacturing plants for criminals, don’t you?”

Danny wasn’t sure how to respond to such a sweeping generalization of the system, but Pape compelled him to answer. “Perhaps.”

“No matter how you look at it, the system in this country’s a hopeless mess,” Pape said. “And no one has the will to fix it. That, my friend, is where I come in. Basal is the first facility to look the problem square in the eyes and fix what’s broken, from the ground up. It’s why the department of corrections signed off on spending $150 million to build and operate Basal. It took too many years and far too much political maneuvering to line up everyone, but now we have it. It’s my turn to help fix the world.”

His voice was like a purr, comforting, engendering trust. The warden looked down at the file and picked up a sheet of photocopied snapshots that Danny recognized from his original processing.

“I see you’ve put on a few muscles since they first sent you away. You like working out?”

“It helps me focus, yes.”

“Good. You’re going to need that focus to become a better man in here, Danny. All of it.”

The warden set the pictures down and folded his hands on the desk.

“I’m guessing that you’re wondering why you were transferred to our facility? Am I correct?”

“The question has crossed my mind, yes.”

“For starters you should know that I’m very particular about who I invite into the program. Each candidate is carefully vetted. No attitudes, no violent criminals, no gang members, no racists, no drug addicts. We operate near full capacity. You’re the first transfer in four months. I accept only two kinds of members: those with very long or indeterminate life sentences who have proven they can follow rules, and the newly incarcerated who believe they are innocent. It’s critical that all of our members get off on the right foot, which is why I personally indoctrinate them. Consider this your gateway into a new world. Within these walls you will find true life or you will find hell. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” Danny watched him, intrigued.

“Do you know what the word basal means?”

“It means ‘basic.’”

“That’s right. I like to think of it as foundational. Everything at Basal is about getting back to the basics of the human condition. The foundation of our souls. Who we are and who we are meant to be. As a priest, I’m sure you can appreciate that?”

“I’m no longer a priest,” Danny said. “But yes, I think I understand.”

“At Ironwood you were seen as a number. FX49565, to be precise. But I look at you and I see a human being who stands about six feet tall with brown hair and blue eyes. You’re thirty-six and weigh 217 pounds, most of it muscle. More important, you seem to have the intellect of a scholar and the resolve of a thoughtful, disciplined man.”

Danny wasn’t quite sure how to take the warden. He spoke sincerely with a calm and soothing voice, but there was something odd about his stare.

“Still, let’s not mince words. You’ve slipped. Fallen. You are broken and it’s my job to fix you. This is Basal, and in Basal we go back the basics. The very basics. Do you understand?”

“Most of it, yes.”

“Not all of it?”

“Some things take time to understand.”

“You don’t think you’re broken?”

“As you said, aren’t we all?”

“Yes, but not all of us are priests who murder. And if I were to guess, there are more than two bodies out there killed by your hand.”

So the warden knew about that as well. “I was in the Bosnian War.”

“Did I ask you to explain yourself? You have a way with judges as well, I understand.” The man drilled him with his blue eyes. “And district attorneys,” Pape said. “You cut a deal. In exchange for your confession to the murders of Jonathan Bourque and Darby Gordon, the DA agreed to no press. No death penalty. Fifty years in prison. You waived appeal. Why? Probably because doing so typically limits the inquiry to a simple identification of the victim’s bodies rather than a full investigation, which would produce evidence needed in the event of an appeal. Which leads me to believe you’re hiding something. Are you hiding something, Danny?”

The man’s assumptions were correct. How he’d come to the conclusion so easily was disconcerting. A full investigation of the facts surrounding the victims might have produced forensic evidence that incriminated someone else. Someone Danny loved more than he loved his own life.

“Perhaps you’re hiding something about Renee?” the warden said.

A chill rode Danny’s spine. What had a moment ago been deep concern immediately grew to alarm. How could the warden even guess such a thing?

Pape picked up a sheet of paper from the file. “A Renee Gilmore, if I’m right. Ring a bell?”

“She’s a very good friend,” Danny said. “We go way back.”

“Yes, I bet you do.” He set the paper down and closed the file. “You must understand what I’m driving at.”

But Danny didn’t understand.

“The fact is, you’re broken. A priest, no less, who has failed in the worst of ways. As the book says: ‘Any man who falls from the grace of his brothers is no brother at all.’ Isn’t that right?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t recall that passage. Where’s it from?”

The warden wagged his head at the bookshelf to his left. “Take your pick.”

The books on the middle shelf made up what appeared to be a nearly exhaustive library of holy books from all the world’s major religions, and as many smaller ones. The Muslim Quran, the Christian Bible, the Jewish Talmud, the Hindu Bhagavad Gita, the Analects of Confucius, and more, all lined up in no particular order.

“My point is simple,” Pape said. “Basal isn’t here to destroy you, however deserving you are, or to keep you away from society, but to fix you while you can still be saved. To rehabilitate you in a way that no other facility can possibly hope to. You won’t simply do time here, Danny. You will either find a new life and a reduced sentence, or you will find real trouble. Are you agreeable to that?”

Danny couldn’t mistake the irony of the warden’s words. As a priest, he’d been the defender of the abused, the weak, the outcasts trampled under the heavy feet of powerful men. He’d confronted such powerful men, given them one chance to change their oppressive ways, and if they failed he’d change their ways for them. Often with a bullet to the head.

And now he was being confronted with the same choice. Change or be changed. Forever.

“As you see fit,” Danny said.

“And I see fit that every man must first recognize their true nature and come face-to-face with who they really are in full confession. This must happen before they can turn around and begin the true path of repentance and rehabilitation. As the good books say, only when you realize just how wretched you are can you climb to freedom. Will you allow me to take you on that journey, Danny?”

“As long as I’m in your facility, my life isn’t my own,” Danny replied. “It’s yours.”

The warden stared at him for a few seconds and then slowly offered a slight smile. “And so it is. In Basal, I am God. And if you’re going to reenter that fallen world out there, you must first understand the true nature of reward for good behavior and punishment for deviant behavior.”

He slid a piece of paper across the desk and set a pen on top of it. “You are required to sign this waiver to participate in our program. Basal is outside the rest of the system, and as such there are special restrictions and rules. Take a moment to read it before you sign it.”

Danny scanned the one-page document, which consisted of a list of behavioral rules and the forfeiture of several basic rights associated with visitation, mail, phone calls, and due process.

Most lifers who’d spent time in another prison would see the waiver as a small price to pay for a more comfortable stay and an earlier release. Fish—new guys—who believed they were innocent might be less likely to sign, unless they had no case or representation. Clearly, the warden only wanted those who fit a particular profile in his prison.

The waiver’s restrictions might make contact with Renee more difficult, but there was now another consideration boring through Danny’s mind. The warden seemed to suspect more about Renee than was on the books. How, Danny didn’t know, but the fact that Pape might represent a danger to Renee compelled Danny to learn more about the severity of the warden’s threat. He couldn’t do so locked down at Ironwood.

Danny signed the waiver.

“Thank you.” The warden stood, slid his chair under his desk, and began to pace, hands now behind his back.

“My prison is unlike any other, hidden from prying eyes, and I intend to keep it that way. Consider yourself fully isolated from the influences that corrupted you. That includes phone calls, mail, and visitation, which are earned privileges. Not easily earned, as you will see. I have the full support of the director who oversees this prison, and he’s given me full authority. Due process is in place, but it’s quick, and my word stands without question.”

He pulled the translucent lace drape aside with a long finger and peered outside.

“As you have likely noted, we don’t favor typical prison slang. It’s critical that members forget everything they think they know about prison. This isn’t a prison, it’s my sanctuary. It’s a proper reflection of authentic life. I’m sure a man of the cloth can appreciate that.”

He released the curtain and continued down the length of his desk.

“We have three populations in our sanctuary. The commons wing is occupied by what’s called the general population at other institutions. A smaller privileged wing is for those who reject deviant behavior and demonstrate sincere progress. And then we have the meditation floor, what you might think of as administrative segregation, or the hole. It’s a travesty that inmates aren’t rewarded for good behavior in most prisons, wouldn’t you agree?”

“I can see that.”

“It’s an equal travesty that they aren’t punished for deviant behavior. In our sanctuary reward is both earned and coveted. Do good and you will be richly rewarded. But fail me and you will suffer. As the book says, ‘An eye for an eye.’ Isn’t that how it works?”

Danny’s mind was still on how Pape seemed to know so much about him. Typically a warden knew only what was in a prisoner’s file, which rarely held all the details of his crime. In the warden’s careful vetting process, he had obviously dug much deeper. Everything he’d mentioned was a matter of record somewhere.

“I asked a simple question, Danny. Please answer.”

“You would like my true opinion?”

“Would I have asked for it if I didn’t?”

“Then I would say an eye for an eye is best replaced by forgiveness, love, and mercy.”

The warden nodded. “Yes, you would. We may have challenges, you and I. But in the end, you will see my wisdom. We don’t have an orientation period. You will leave me and go straight to the commons, where you will either learn the way things work on your own or be helped along by my staff. A handbook in your cell will lay out all of our rules, but let me highlight a few I’m partial to.”

He cleared his throat and brought the back of his hand across his lips as if to dry them, then placed his fingertips on the desktop.

“Foul language is not permitted under any circumstance. It only reinforces learned behavior. Violence of any nature is strictly prohibited unless approved by me. Any form of sexual conduct is strictly prohibited unless I deem it to be appropriate. This includes any form of homosexuality, masturbation, or inciting lewd discussion. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Some of the rules may seem pointless. I would advise you to follow them all to the letter. They’re in place to help you learn obedience, regardless of the nature of that obedience. Any infraction will be grounds for swift disciplinary action in a manner I see fitting. Is that clear?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” He pressed the button on an intercom to his right. “Shari, please send Bostich in to transfer our new member to the commons.”

He returned his attention to Danny. “As I’m sure you know, priests on the inside are often misjudged by others. They will see you as scum, an understandable sentiment. One of our members, a lifer named Bruce Randell, has a particular dislike of your kind for good reason and will try to make your life complicated. He’s not a kind man. I assume you will stay clear of him?”

“I will do my best.”

“I doubt your best will be good enough. Randell is a violent man.”

“And yet he’s in your prison.”

The warden smiled. “Yes, well, I do make exceptions to the rules when it suits our collective goal. A wolf or two in the sheep pen keeps everyone on their toes.”

Danny had kept his former occupation to himself at Ironwood, because a priest in prison was too quickly suspected as a sex offender, the worst possible classification among prisoners. Even the most hardened criminals refused to tolerate rapists and pedophiles.

It was senseless that a murderer could so harshly judge a rapist, but the society called prison had its own code, as unflinching as any law.

It was ironic that Danny’s first victim had been a sexual predator.

The latch on the door hummed and snapped open. Bostich stepped in and looked at Danny. The man was in his thirties and wore a buzz cut, black slacks, and a black short-sleeved shirt. His hair was bleached, if Danny was right. Yellowish brows hung over dark eyes, which were an oddity in his pale, blotchy face. The man was average height, but strong, with thick fingers.

His eyes skirted to the warden. “Sir.”

“Take our priest to his quarters,” Pape said.

“Yes, sir.”

Danny stood and walked to the door. He knew nothing about Bostich other than that he was likely the primary enforcer at Basal. Already, he didn’t like the man. But this was his old judgmental nature rising. He set his disfavor aside and offered Bostich a nod, which was returned by an unflinching stare.

“Oh, and Danny…”

He turned to face the warden.

“There’s a rapist in our sanctuary who continues to insist on his innocence. A dense young man named Peter Manning. I want you to see to him, help him understand his true wretchedness, the first step toward rehabilitation. Can you do that?”

Danny hesitated. “I will do my best.”

Pape tapped his fingertips on the desk and smiled. “Surely you know how to handle people who harbor dark secrets. How you handle Peter may very well determine how it goes for you in Basal. Hell is a miserable place, Danny. Take care not to join Peter there.”