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five security checks on his way to the meeting. Each set of guards eyed him as if he had requested to visit Charlie Manson. The man’s prison number drew looks of distaste from each and every man or woman he came across. He soon found himself standing in an enclosed concrete area with high walls and fences. There was no view of the grounds outside those walls and the only evident threat was a guard tower with a uniformed man watching him with a slung Ruger Mini-14 on his back. The eyes of the guard never left the visitor.
    Hiram Vickers saw the man in the orange jumpsuit standing and looking at nothing in particular other than the blue sky. Then the prisoner lowered his head and started walking the line around the walls. Vickers watched him for a moment and then approached. He was minus his old briefcase, as it never made it past the first checkpoint.
    “Beautiful day for a walk.”
    The tall, extremely thin man with black hair just kept his gait without looking up at Vickers.
    “I don’t conduct corporate inquiries out here, so go fuck yourself.”
    The man kept walking and Vickers moved to pace him.
    “Saucy for a Harvard graduate—I think prison has jaded you into being something other than you are.” Vickers chuckled as the man kept walking. “I’m corporate, but not the corporate type you believe me to be. My company is a bit smaller and based in Virginia.”
    Vickers could see that the man, although he kept walking, became interested: his breath noticeably caught momentarily with a hitch as if the prisoner was trying to stifle a hiccup.
    “I used to have many close friends in Virginia.” He stopped and looked at the visitor for the first time. He examined the man as if he were looking at some new and strange breed of bug. “But like most, the rats ran for cover when the exterminator arrived.” He gave the man a dirty look and then continued his walk to nowhere.
    “And that is the very subject I am here to see you about. It’s not the rats I’m interested in, it’s the exterminator I want to meet.”
    The prisoner laughed but kept his stride even and nonstop. “If you mention the name of that particular exterminator you could find yourself my roommate here”—the tall man gestured about him at the thick walls of Leavenworth prison—“in the Club Med of the plains.” The man in the orange jumpsuit laughed and shook his head at the strange and badly dressed man walking beside him.
    Vickers matched the laugh with his own chuckle. “Actually, it’s the field men I want, not their boss.”
    Prisoner 275698 stopped walking and stared at the slight man in the rumpled blue suit.
    “Don’t those people at Langley give you a clothing allowance?”
    Vickers, although the insult caught him off guard, ignored the comment because as a matter of fact he didn’t get a clothing allowance from the cheap bastards in Virginia.
    “To be more precise, Prisoner 275698, I need several of those names—and one in particular.”
    “Why me? I’ve been illegally locked up here since 2006. Why should I assist the people who helped put me here—stabbed me in the back, let’s say. Why?”
    “Because the man who signed your life away is having difficulty hanging onto his power.”
    “Look, the president who put me away is long out of office, but his replacement still holds the key and he’s not going to give it up.” The prisoner smiled. “It seems I am not the most popular figure going in the corporate world these days.”
    Hiram Vickers stopped walking and became deathly serious as he watched the man’s back.
    “Things change—they can change very quickly, I think. The president doesn’t need another problem on his hands with the budget he just turned in. The draft board thing isn’t going over too well either. I think you may have some very understanding ears turned your way in the next few months, and that, my friend, is the why portion of your question. I can get you out of here and back into the fight