Armageddon - Left Behind Series 11 by Tim F. LaHaye & Jerry B. Jenkins

Author:Tim F. LaHaye & Jerry B. Jenkins [LaHaye, Tim F. & Jenkins, Jerry B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9780842332361
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers
Published: 2003-11-01T07:00:00+00:00

"If you can be British, I can make you look that way. Tweeds and all."

Chloe's guess about where she was headed was con-firmed when Jock radioed ahead and the SUV was met by a phalanx of GC motorcycles and squad cars. They escorted the celebrated prisoner to the grounds of what had once been known as Stateville Correctional Center in Joliet, Illinois.

The place was a gothic house of horror that had been converted from a state penitentiary to one of the GC's largest international prisons. It had both male and female prisoners. In fact, the female population was sec-ond largest only to the Belgium Facility for Female Rehabilitation (Buffer).

The first thing to hit Chloe was the crowd of media trucks jamming the entrance. Cameras pointed toward the SUV from every conceivable perch, and once the vehicle had passed, she looked back to see the crews scrambling for position in the vast courtyard.

The yard had become legendary at Stateville during the last two and a half years. Prisoners were allowed there for only two reasons. They were herded past a gigantic bronze statue of Carpathia three times a day, where they were stopped in groups of thirty to fifty and allowed to kneel and worship, or they were in the yard to be executed. The yard had seven guillotines about thirty feet apart and positioned so that the sun baked them from dawn to dusk.

Jock stopped the SUV just inside the yard. "Look at 'em there, sweetie," he said. "Those blades get sharpened every night, but not a one of 'em's ever been cleaned. No scraping, no washing, no rust inhibitors.

"And you know those slots on each side, where the big blades slide down?

Back when we were more humane, those were lubricated every time they were used. No more. Now the blades scrape along the sides, sometimes get hung up, get crooked, slow down. I mean, they still weigh enough that, even on a bad day, by the time they reach your neck, they're gonna dig in at least three inches.

"In the old days, a blade didn't do its job, too bad for us. The sentence was to stick your head in there until the blade dropped. If it somehow didn't kill you, well, you had taken your punishment. And don't think that didn't happen more than once. Lots of people walking around with severe neck wounds.

"But now, blade doesn't kill ya, we just hoist 'er again and let 'er go. Two, three times with a rusty, blood-caked blade that, like I say, is sharpened every night-that'll do the trick."

About twenty feet before each guillotine stood a rick-ety wood table, also gray and weathered by the sun and wind. Each had two incongruous Bank of England chairs behind it, burnished redwood significantly less wind worn.

"Processors and mark applicators get to sit," Jock said. "The condemned stand in lines. Once their infor-mation is recorded and any personal belongings have been confiscated, they're issued a plastic laundry basket they hand to the executioner. He or she sets it on the other side of where the blade comes down.

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