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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Brotherhood

  The Art of Rendition

  Escape Artist

  Excerpt from Outlaw

  Also by Mark Sullivan

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Brotherhood

  U.S. Disciplinary Barracks

  Fort Leavenworth, Kansas

  March 15, 2003

  The Castle lay in ruins that bitter late-winter morning. Huge wrecking balls were pulverizing the formidable brick structure, once the American military’s sole maximum-security prison.

  In the backseat of a blue Ford sedan, U.S. Army Major General Percival Barrens barely glanced out his window at the destruction. A lean African American with short iron-gray hair and a face that revealed nothing, General Barrens’s attention was focused a mile ahead on the new military prison that replaced the Castle.

  “What are the chances he accepts, General?” asked the woman in a dark pantsuit sitting beside him. Her name was Ellen Wolfe. Attractive, chilly, with short blonde hair, Wolfe worked for the Central Intelligence Agency.

  “Man who’s been through as much as he has, it’s hard to say,” Barrens replied as they pulled into the parking lot outside the visitors’ entrance to the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks.

  The USDB was more like a fortress than a prison and featured the kind of security common at so-called “super-max” facilities such as Pelican Bay State Prison in California and the U.S. Penitentiary, Florence in Colorado. Guards in the towers carried submachine guns. Guards inside worked in bulletproof “pods” with portholes for shotguns. They operated gates, air locks, and the lives of prisoners with computer controls and dispassion.

  Inside, one such guard nodded at General Barrens and Wolfe and slid their identification back into a steel retractable box. They retrieved their papers and passed through an air lock, where they submitted to a body scan.

  On the other side, they were met by Colonel Harrison Craig, commandant of the USDB, who looked at Barrens and said, “This kind of short notice is most unusual, General. Completely out of protocol and—”

  “I don’t give a damn, and neither does the secretary of defense,” the general barked. “Where is he, Colonel?”

  Colonel Craig’s cheeks burned and his jaw stiffened, but he replied, “Special segregated facility. Follow me, sir.”

  “Segregated?” Wolfe asked. “He did nothing violent that I—”

  “A precautionary measure,” the colonel snapped. “Have you read his file?”

  The general said nothing. But the details of the complete file—not one the commandant had seen—sped through Barrens’s brain. The inmate he was about to meet had seven years with U.S. Special Forces, Rangers first and then as part of a JSOC unit, an elite team drawn from all four branches of the military. He spoke eight languages and tested genius on IQ tests. A master of disguise and subterfuge, he was an expert in hand-to-hand combat and versed in virtually every kind of weapon known to man. He had also endured one of the strangest childhoods Barrens had ever heard of.…

  “General?” Wolfe said.

  Barrens had fallen behind. He hustled to catch up. He, the CIA officer, and the warden passed through six more sets of steel bars and doors, climbed a stairway, ducked through a hatch, and eased out onto a catwalk of sorts. The opaque roof allowed little natural light. Below the catwalk and to either side were rows of deep rectangular cement wells, exercise yards for the segregated prisoners, who used them one hour out of twenty-four.

  “That’s him,” Colonel Craig said, gesturing to the second exercise yard on the right and the shirtless man in his late twenties doing handstand push-ups. “Robin Monarch.”

  Monarch appeared to have heard the warden because he came to his feet fluidly, changed directions with the grace of a natural athlete, and looked up at the three on the catwalk. Better than six feet tall, lean, and hard-muscled, the prisoner had a dusky tone to his skin and possessed a handsome face of smoothly melded features. He was, as Barrens had heard him described, “a man who could fit in almost anywhere.”

  Monarch’s almond-shaped and -colored eyes took in the warden and Wolfe, whose nostrils flared under his gaze, before fixing on Barrens and the two stars he wore on either shoulder. His attention remained on the general, even when Colonel Craig said, “Exercise is over, Monarch. You have visitors.”

  * * *

  Five minutes later, guards armed with pump-action shotguns led the now manacled prisoner into a room bare but for a table and four chairs bolted to the floor. Barrens, with Wolfe beside him, sat facing Monarch.

  The inmate showed no emotion as the guards ran a chain from his ankle irons to a heavy-gauge eyebolt sunk in the cement floor. With a shorter length of chain they secured his wrist manacles to the underside of the table. Barrens’s focus went to Monarch’s inner right forearm and a tattoo that read “FDL” in flowing script that looked like calligraphy. The inmate did not seem to notice the general’s interest. He was looking at Wolfe, the CIA officer, who at first seemed amused and then slightly flustered by his unwavering attention.

  When the guards left them alone, General Barrens introduced himself and Wolfe before saying, “We have a few questions for you, Monarch.”

  The prisoner looked at Barrens, blinked. Said nothing.

  The CIA officer cleared her throat and said, “It would greatly help your cause if you’d first tell us where the money from the stolen gold went.”

  Across the table, Monarch took the question in stride, but flashed on the mental image first of a kind woman with a long gray braid, and then of boys running barefoot through dusty streets. He could almost smell the air, hear the music.

  He held his tongue for several seconds, but then said, “As I told the court, I have no idea what happened to that gold. And help my cause in what way? And with who, exactly?”

  General Barrens grimaced. “The court didn’t believe you. How could it? Eyewitnesses saw you enter that Afghan chieftains’ compound. Afterward nearly a quarter of a million dollars in gold—gold generated by the opium trade—was gone. Do you think the judge and judge advocates were stupid, Monarch? Do you think the jurors were complete imbeciles?”

  Monarch shrugged and said, “Help my cause in what way? And with who?”

  Wolfe glanced at Barrens, who said, “We have the power to get you out of here. But only if you level with us.”

  Monarch was stunned by the offer but did not show it. For several beats he studied Wolfe, an attractive woman to say the least, but one whose body language betrayed her. She was lying, or at least not telling him everything. These two had the power to release him from Leavenworth? No, there had to be another angle here beyond simply telling the truth, which he would definitely not do.

  Monarch said, “Besides the gold—whatever happened to it—what do you want to know?”

  “Why did you lie on your enlistment documents?” Barrens said. “That’s a federal offense all by itself.”

  It was true. Monarch had lied on those documents. But he said, “Did I?”

  “You did,” Wolfe said. “We know who your real parents were, Robin. We know what they did for a living, what they had you do as a boy. We know how they really died.”

  This time, Monarch flashed on an urban street scene at night where salsa music played. He saw uniformed police climbing from unmarked cars
. He saw himself at thirteen, fleeing from those officers into the sweltering darkness.

  “We know almost all of it,” Barrens said. “It’s a big part of why we’re here.”

  “We just want you to fill in the gaps a little,” Wolfe added. “So we know we’re justified in trusting you.”

  Monarch almost smiled. “As the court martial panel decided, trusting me would be a mistake, Ms. Wolfe.”

  The general’s lips twisted in annoyance. “You disappear in Buenos Aires for more than four years after your parents’ murder, and then you just show up in Miami at an enlistment office. Where were you during those four years?”

  Monarch fought the urge to glance at his FDL tattoo and said, “Surviving.”

  “How?” Wolfe demanded.

  Monarch had nothing to say. That part of his life was a secret. It would remain that way, no matter the consequences. He had sworn an oath, and above all he was a man of his word.

  He said, “You don’t care about my past. That’s not why you’re here. What’s really going to get me out?”

  Barrens hesitated, then said, “We want you to steal something, Monarch. If you’re successful, after your return, you’ll be granted your freedom.”

  Monarch almost smiled again. “Full pardon?”

  Barrens nodded. “And your conviction expunged from the record.”

  Monarch shook his head. “Sorry, General, but a two-star does not have that kind of authority.”

  “But the secretary of defense does.”

  The secretary of defense. That surprised Monarch. “What am I supposed to steal for the secretary of defense?”

  Over the course of the next ten minutes, they told him. Monarch listened, digested, calculated, then said, “And you expect me to survive that kind of mission, in those kinds of conditions?”

  “That’s up to you, isn’t it?” Barrens replied.

  Wolfe said, “It’s the deal, anyway, Robin, and it’s on the table for exactly one minute.”

  “Take it or leave it,” the general said. “Freedom or back to the cell.”

  Monarch considered each of them in turn. “I may be in isolation, but I read. I know what’s going on in the outside world. The protests. And I’ve read the justifications for … Let’s just say that the evidence doesn’t strike me as overwhelming, you know?”

  The CIA officer said, “From your position, isn’t that quite beside the point? And think about it: You’ll be saving lives in the long run.”

  Monarch looked at her and thought about their offer. “Restoration of rank? Full reinstatement?”

  The general shook his head. “We can only go so far. You’ll be a civilian if you survive.”

  Monarch thought, cocked his head, and rotated his palms up, causing the chains to clink and jingle.

  Wolfe smiled. “You’ll do it, then?”

  “Sure,” he said at last. “Why not? I was taught as a child to be a gambler who always bets on himself.”

  “Congratulations, then,” Barrens said, sounding greatly satisfied. “In a half hour you’ll see the real light of day.”

  “I look forward to that,” Monarch admitted.

  Wolfe’s smile intensified, and then she turned somber. “But first the gold, and where you were between the ages of thirteen and eighteen.”

  “Sorry,” Monarch said. “Not part of the deal.”

  She hardened. “You’re hardly in a position to negotiate.”

  “Really?” Monarch replied. “The way I see it, you are in no position to negotiate. If you so desperately want me to steal for you, those are my terms.”

  The CIA officer glanced at the general, who paused but then nodded.

  * * *

  The biting air outside the USDB gates made Monarch feel so good he swore he could taste freedom in every breath. Six months. It was the longest he’d ever gone without seeing the sun.

  He climbed into the backseat of the Ford. Wolfe got in the other side. General Barrens rode up front. As they drove past the ruins of the Castle, Monarch caught the CIA officer watching him with a look of bemusement.

  “What?” he asked.

  “You’ve piqued my interest,” Wolfe said.

  “That right?” Monarch said.

  “Your mysterious past. I feel like a bull that’s seen a fluttering red cape.”

  “You calling me a matador?” he asked.

  Wolf half laughed and said, “I’m a stubborn woman. You watch, Monarch. It may take me a while, but I’ll figure out where you went after your parents died.”

  “Good luck with that,” Monarch said, and closed his eyes.

  He meant only to end the conversation, but soon realized that his sudden, dramatic reversal of fortune had left him strangely exhausted. Over the years he had learned to rest when his body told him to rest, and he soon dozed off into an altered state of vivid dreams.

  * * *

  Monarch saw himself at fourteen. It was dusk, summer, still hot, and he was walking with an older, much larger boy named Claudio on a busy commercial street in one of the better neighborhoods in Buenos Aires. Beneath the right side of the black ball cap Robin wore, he felt a scar itch. He’d taken to scratching at it obsessively, even through the stiff fabric of the hat.

  “Quit picking at it, or you’ll get yourself all infected again,” said Claudio in Spanish. “Rule number ten, Robin. Take care of yourself. Except for a brother, no one else will.”

  “Sometimes I think you and the others have too many rules, Claudio,” Robin complained, but lowered his hand, felt the scar itch for attention almost immediately.

  “Eighteen rules are too many to live by?” Claudio demanded sharply. He’d stopped to glare at Robin. “If you think that, you are an even bigger fool than I thought when I found you lying in the ano’s mud. And I am wasting my time.”

  Robin remembered coming to at the base of the garbage heap after the pipe had hit him, left his scalp split open and his face covered in blood. Almost nine months ago now. He remembered the pain, the nausea. But most of all he remembered what had come before the attack, the grief, the loneliness, and the want that had permeated his terrible existence.

  “What is it, then?” Claudio demanded.

  The older boy had folded his arms. Robin’s attention flickered to the ornate calligraphy tattooed on Claudio’s inner right forearm: FDL. The top of the D had been crafted to suggest fingers about to pluck something. In a moment he recalled all that Claudio had taught him in the nine months since their meeting. How to glide and bump during a pickpocket scheme. How to swarm a mark as part of a team, to pick a dozen different locks, to disable alarm systems, to steal creatively.

  Robin’s left hand reached across to scratch his own inner right forearm.

  “I guess eighteen rules are not too many to live by,” he said.

  Claudio smiled, tapped his lips. “I knew you were not so dumb, my friend.”

  As night fell over the city, the older boy said, “You know, we will not always be thieves. I, for example, will be a great artist someday.”

  Robin had seen Claudio drawing and painting on walls and pieces of cardboard, but laughed. “An artist?”

  Claudio’s face clouded. “A great painter. You watch, I’ll paint the city with all that I have seen.”

  After that boast, he led Robin through a park and into an alley that ran out behind fourteen-foot-high brick walls that helped create individual compounds surrounding a row of ornate mansions. Across the alley, opposite those walls, a steep ivied bank rose and disappeared into a stand of flowering Palo Borracho trees.

  Claudio inspected the rear gates of the compounds until they reached the sixth, the one that boasted a red wooden door. Robin could hear people laughing and glasses clinking inside.

  Claudio surveyed the alley in both directions, turned away from the red gate, and began to claw his way up the steep ivied bank and into the trees. Robin clambered after him, ignoring the thorns that ripped at his arms. He reached the top, gasping beneath the fl
owering trees. The air was sweet, and for some reason it caused the boy to think of his mother, Francesca, and he had to fight the tears that welled in the darkness. She’d been dead ten months.

  Claudio took no notice of Robin’s sudden grief. The older boy was peering down at the mansions. Robin wiped at his eyes and joined him. The compounds to the left and right of the one with the red rear gate were silent. No lights on in those houses. No lights on in those yards. But in the middle compound, behind the red gate, a party was under way, not a formal affair, but a generous gathering of “the wealthy and well dressed,” a description Robin’s late father, Billy, had liked to use.

  The party was on a terrace beside a glimmering pool. Tiny white lights glowed in the trees. Soft piano music filled the air.

  “Which one?” Robin asked, gesturing to the darkened compounds to either side of the one hosting the party.

  Claudio shook his head, pointed at the party compound. “You want in to La Fraternidad de Ladrones, you go big, my friend. You want in to the Brotherhood of Thieves, you got to sneak in there, right under their stinkin’ rich, don’t-care-about-nobody-but-themselves noses, and then you got to steal ’em blind.”

  * * *

  “Monarch? Robin?”

  Monarch heard the voice in his dream, felt the nudge at his shoulders, bolted awake into a defensive posture, arms set, ready. He glanced around wildly, seeing General Barrens and then Wolfe, who cringed back in her seat.

  “Plane’s waiting,” Barrens said.

  Monarch glanced out the window and saw a military transport jet idling on the tarmac at Sherman Army Airfield, twelve miles from the prison. It was real, then, not a dream. He was free. He got out of the car, did not bother with a last look around at the bleak Kansas winter, and climbed up into the plane’s hold.

  Folding seats and harnesses were bolted into the flanks of the inner hull. The rest of the space was bare but for a huge metal table on which a stack of large maps lay beside a bank of computer screens. Three people, two men, one woman, in Army Air jumpsuits, worked at keyboards.

  Monarch sat beside Barrens, clipped himself into the harness, a move that felt oddly comforting to him, a familiar gesture that had been lost to memory inside the Disciplinary Barracks. Wolfe took the jump seat across from him.