Warden Stevens was a soft, round man with prodigious jowls and sympathetic eyes. Kit could imagine no one better suited to put on a fake white beard and red suit and hand out gifts to children at an office Christmas party. She questioned, though, whether he was the right sort to guard truly hardened men.

The Federal Medical Center was forty minutes west of Boston, nestled in a suburban enclave where upper-middle-class families bustled through their lives without giving a thought to the criminals housed in their midst. Nor did the facility provide any real external reminders. The place was neat and clean, and there were no barbed-wire fences in view from the outside. It was split into two parts. One half housed a federal minimum security prison where tax cheats and Wall Street bandits played chess and made macramé hats for their hedge-fund friends, who would welcome them back to the financial world in six to eighteen months with there-but-for-the-grace-of-God nods and shrugs. The other half housed prisoners who required medical care or special attention. It had been designed to accommodate prisoners at every level of risk, from minimum security up through Supermax. Steele had read all of this on the FMC Devens website, which proudly advertised the humanity with which all prisoners were treated.

Warden Stevens led Steele through the administrative building, which looked more like an educational facility than a prison. “It’s good of you to come all the way out here to check on Mr. Carpio. I understand you were the one who took him into custody?”

“That’s right. Both times.”

“The first time was on a raid, correct?”

Kit nodded. “I’ve been working to cut into MS-13 for the last three years.”

“Yes, from what I understand, you have quite a reputation among the gang community. They even have a nickname for you. I’m told they call you the Hunter. Why is that?”

“I’m good at my job.”

“Mr. Carpio certainly has a great deal of animosity toward you. How did you catch him the first time?”

“Dumb luck, really. We found one of their hangouts and raided it for drugs and weapons. He was there, and we picked him up. We didn’t know at the time who he was. He had no papers, and he didn’t show up in the system, so we handed him over to ICE. He was going to be deported.”

“What happened?”

“Somebody screwed up.”

Stevens frowned. “His escape was unfortunate.”

“Particularly for the eight people he killed afterward. Since then, we’ve connected him to more than a dozen killings over the past few years.”

Stevens nodded grimly. “As I say, it was unfortunate.” His reassuring smile returned. “Of course, that had nothing to do with this facility, and such an escape could never happen here.”

“No?”