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”
