The Program

by Stephen White

Overview

The Program safeguards the truth, but when The Program has a hidden agenda, the protected become the hunted

With his nuanced psychological insight, inscrutable plotting, and a captivating lead character that parallels Jonathan Kellerman's Alex Delaware, Stephen White's Alan Gregory novels have become perennial national bestsellers. But, with The Program, White has challenged himself and honed his craft with remarkable assurance to create a rare breed of thriller. A dazzling mix of first-person and omniscient voices rewards readers with an irresistible narrative momentum. But the heart and soul of the novel is an indomitable woman reevaluating the seemingly innocuous choices she's made in the past while confronting the horrifying circumstances that threaten her family's future survival.

"Every precious thing I lose, you will lose two." The Program begins with a condemned man's last words to New Orleans District Attorney Kirsten Lord. After her husband is gunned down in front of her, Lord has no choice but to flee the wrath of the murderer's vengeance. Lord pulls up stakes, changes her name, and accepts the Witness Protection Program's offer to hide her and her young daughter in Boulder, Colorado. Soon thereafter, they are befriended by Program veteran Carl Luppo, a solitary mob assassin tormented by his former life who has nothing but time for regret.

Sensing that someone inside the program has compromised Lord and her daughter's safety, Luppo takes on the role of sentinel, fully realizing that this may be his last shot at redemption. Even though Lord suspects that Luppo's warnings about the Program's dark side are justified and that she should believe the former hit man's instincts, the only people she can really trust are her nine-year-old daughter and perhaps her Program-appointed psychologist Alan Gregory.

Fans of White's previous work will applaud the brilliant use of series favorite Alan Gregory in a seemingly secondary role in the novel, and new readers will find themselves compelled to find out what Gregory has encountered before. But all readers will agree that The Program is a superior thriller; a novel firmly grounded in the realities of three-dimensional characters in crisis and driven with the narrative pace of a guilty pleasure.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780307489821
Publisher:	Random House Publishing Group
Publication date:	12/18/2008
Series:	Alan Gregory , #9
Sold by:	Random House
Format:	eBook
Pages:	480
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Stephen White is a clinical psychologist and New York Times bestselling author of Cold Case, Manner of Death, Critical Conditions, Remote Control, Harm's Way, Higher Authority, Private Practices, and Privileged Information. He lives in Denver, Colorado, with his wife and son.

Hometown:

Colorado

Date of Birth:

August 20, 1951

Place of Birth:

Long Island, New York

Education:

B.A., UC Berkeley, 1972; M.A., University of Colorado, Boulder, 1975; Ph.D., 1979

Website:

http://www.authorstephenwhite.com

Read an Excerpt

ALMOST FAT TUESDAY

1

"Remember this. Every precious thing I lose, you will lose two."

The man was a good target.

Tall, six-five. Wavy blond hair that shined almost red in the filtered February sunlight. Ivory skin that refused to tan. Green eyes that danced to the beat of every melody that radiated from every tavern on every street corner in the always-tawdry Quarter. Even during a crowded lunch hour in the most congested part of New Orleans, you could spot him a block away, his head bobbing above the masses. On the eve of Fat Tuesday the Quarter was flush with tourists, and each of them was flush with anticipation of the debauched revelry that would only accelerate as the Monday before stretched into the Tuesday of, as almost-here became Mardi Gras.

The other man, the one with the gun, knew that in a crowd like this one he would have made a rotten target. He was five-eight with his sneakers on. What hair remained on his head was on the dark side of brown. His creeping baldness didn't matter much to him, though, because the Saints cap he was wearing shielded his scalp from the sun as effectively as the distinctive steel-rimmed Ray-Bans shaded his eyes. The khakis and navy-striped sweater he was wearing had been chosen because they comprised the de facto uniform-of-the-day among the male revelers wandering to join the crowds on Bourbon Street.

The late morning had turned mild, and the man's windbreaker was draped over his right hand and arm, totally disguising the barrel of his Ruger Mark II as well as the additional length of the stubby suppressor. His left hand was shoved deep in the pocket of his khakis. He had been briefed on the tall man's destination in advance and kept his distance as he followed him. At the intersection where Bienville crossed Royal the man with the silenced .22 would begin to close the gap on the man without one. That would give the assassin a little over a block to get close enough to do his job.

The tall, blond man had come from his office near City Hall. His wife had wanted to meet him downtown and accompany him to the restaurant. But he'd declined her offer. He'd made prior arrangements to stop on his way to their lunch date at an antique store on Royal to pick up a nineteenth-century cameo he knew his wife had been coveting. The cameo was a surprise for their anniversary.

The errand on Royal hadn't taken the man long, though, and he was turning the corner from Bienville onto Bourbon ten minutes before he was scheduled to rendezvous with his wife. With an athlete's grace and a large man's strides, he dodged slothful tourists with their to-go cup hurricanes and quickly covered the territory to the entrance of Galatoire's. Briefly he scanned the sidewalk and the teeming street in front of the restaurant. His wife wasn't there. He didn't even consider looking for her inside: Kirsten had a thing about sitting alone in restaurants. He hoped she wouldn't be too late; the line for lunch at one of New Orleans legendary eateries was already growing.

They had been in New Orleans for six years and this would mark the sixth time that they had celebrated their anniversary at Galatoire's. He was the one who insisted on returning year after year. She would have preferred going to a restaurant that actually took reservations. But he prevailed. He was the keeper of the traditions in the family. He was the romantic.

The man with the windbreaker on his arm window-shopped two doors down from Galatoire's, using the storefront glass to reflect the position of his prey. He didn't worry about being spotted. There was no reason that anyone would focus on him. He was a middle-aged guy loitering on Bourbon Street just before lunch hour on the eve of Mardi Gras. One, literally, of thousands. Finally, the beeper in his pocket vibrated. With his fingertip he stilled it and began to scan the street for Kirsten's arrival. His partner up the street had paged him from a cell phone. The page was his signal that she was approaching.

She, too, would have been a good target. Like her husband, Kirsten was tall. And she flaunted it. Two-inch heels took her above six feet, and the skirt of her suit was cut narrowly to accentuate her height. The jacket was tailored to pinch her waist and highlight her hips. Her hair was every bit as blond as her husband's although the sunlight reflected no red. Kirsten was golden, from head to toe.

She carried a small gift box, elaborately wrapped. In it was a key to a suite at the nearby Windsor Court Hotel and a scroll with a wonderfully detailed list that spelled out all the erotic things she planned to do to her husband's lean body between check-in that evening and dawn the next day. She'd had the list drawn on parchment by a friend who was a calligrapher.

The man with the windbreaker spotted Kirsten down the block. As he had been told to expect, she was approaching down Bourbon from Canal. A moment later her husband spotted her, too, but he was reluctant to leave his place in line at Galatoire's. He waved. She waved back. Her smile was electric.

The man with the windbreaker on his arm moved closer to the tall blond man, simultaneously lifting his left hand from his pocket and placing it below the jacket. His right hand was now free. He stuffed it into the pocket of his trousers at the same moment he spotted his partner moving into position behind the woman.

Timing was everything. That's what he'd been told. This wasn't just about the hit; it was also about the timing. Timing was everything.

Kirsten Lord was fifty feet away when the man with the windbreaker stepped into position no more than two yards to the left of her husband, Robert. The position the man took was slightly back from Robert's left shoulder. Kirsten dodged tourists and closed the distance between herself and her husband to twenty feet. Impossibly, her smile seemed to grow brighter.

The man raised his left arm, the one shielded by the windbreaker, so that it extended across his chest. Below the jacket, the barrel of the sound suppressor was now pointing up at a forty-five-degree angle toward his right shoulder.

What People are Saying About This

Lorenzo Carcaterra

A prime-time thriller packed thick with sharp psychological twists and sinister plot turns...not to be missed.
— (Lorenzo Carcaterra, bestselling author of Sleepers)

Iris Johansen

A page-turner and a sharp, compelling portrait of a woman and daughter in crisis.
— (Iris Johansen, bestselling author of And Then You Die)

Stanley Pottinger

The most appealing self-conflicted mobster since Tony Soprano...Stephen White's latest puts him alongside Jonathan Kellerman as a master of the psychological thriller.
— (Stanley Pottinger, bestselling author of The Fourth Procedure)

Interviews

Author Essay
It's Not Always Easy Getting With the Program

As I've grown to accept the fact that I have some experience as a writer -- The Program is my ninth novel -- I've also come to believe that the foundations for stories are enigmatic things. And my latest book, The Program, may have had the most unique genesis of any of my books.

In a chance conversation a little over three years ago I learned a solitary fact: The Witness Protection Program run by the United States Treasury Department hires local mental health professionals to act as consultants. It may not seem like a piece of information that would launch most normal people (read: non-thriller writers) into the throes of bliss, but for me this isolated factoid was a wonderful epiphany.

Within seconds my mind made the connections necessary to come to the conclusion that I had the basis for a terrific story. Alan Gregory, the fictional Boulder psychologist who has been kind enough to allow me to chronicle his absurd life for the past decade, was about to get a new job as a temporary consultant to the Witness Protection Program.

I was thrilled at my general idea, but my joy was unfortunately short lived. What I had in my head was a situation -- a circumstance, if you will -- but it doesn't take much seasoning to know that a circumstance is not a story. I knew I needed to learn more -- a lot more -- about the Witness Protection Program if I wanted to develop a compelling story to wrap around the circumstance. And that's where my trouble began.

Other than what I'd seen in the movies, I was totally ignorant about the Witness Protection Program, so ignorant in fact that I thought the Witness Protection Program was actually called the Witness Protection Program (It isn't. The official name is the Witness Security Program, or in government-speak, WITSEC.) But I was naively confident that I knew how to resolve my ignorance: I have a Ph.D., I'm a trained researcher, and I like to think I know my way around a library. But to my surprise there was nothing useful to be found there. I tried the Internet. Virtually nothing to be found there. I tried the Treasury Department. Sorry, can't help you. That left me where? It left me a great situation to use as a foundation for a story that involved an almost totally secret government program about which I was remarkably ignorant.

As a writer of mystery/thrillers, that was not a good place to be.

What happened? Through some unusual circumstances I was fortunate enough to meet some people who were in a position to teach me almost everything I needed to know about the Witness Security Program as it exists at the community level. The community level is where the interesting things happen. It's where protected witnesses are inserted into new towns, new cities, new lives. It's where the monumental challenges of being a protected witness slap new participants in the face. It's where freshly oriented witnesses confront the reality of living with new identities but no life histories, of making do on small, temporary government stipends, of living on the verge of discovery and the edge of fear.

For readers, The Program is a glimpse inside the daily lives of protected witnesses, a glimpse that that to the best of my knowledge exists no place else in the public record. Along the way you will find familiar faces from the previous books in the series you will meet some new characters that will stick with you for a long time. But, please, before you read set aside any preconceptions you might have about the Witness Protection Program. The preconceptions are probably misconceptions.

Barnes & Noble's own editorial reviewer said that The Program "is an incisive, psychologically acute thriller that illuminates a little-known corner of the criminal justice system. It clearly represents a large step forward for a gifted, underrated writer." I'm confident that you will agree.

A final thought. Tom Stoppard once said, "In any community of a thousand souls there are nine hundred doing the work, ninety doing well, nine doing good, and one lucky dog writing about the other nine hundred and ninety-nine."

Thanks so much for reading my books and allowing me to be the lucky dog. I'm grateful for the opportunity every day. (Stephen White)

Editorial Reviews

Our Review
Trauma Within the Witness "Destruction" Program
The Program is Stephen White's ninth novel, and it offers a slight but effective departure from the main line of his career. Like his previous eight novels, The Program features White's recurring protagonist, clinical psychologist Alan Gregory. Unlike those earlier books, this one casts Gregory as a supporting player in a larger drama, a drama involving a woman on the run, an assortment of professional hit men, and the unnatural pressures of day-to-day life in the Witness Protection Program.

The woman on the run is Kirsten Lord, a New Orleans-based D.A. who successfully prosecutes a local drug dealer for a series of rapes, then finds herself threatened with violent reprisals. "Remember this," the dealer tells her on the day of his conviction. "Every precious thing I lose, you will lose two." Several weeks later, that grim prophecy begins to come true, as Kirsten's husband is shot to death. Shortly afterward, when an unknown woman nearly succeeds in abducting her daughter, Kirsten enters the Witness Security Program (WITSEC) and attempts to establish a new, anonymous existence in Boulder, Colorado.

White excels at conveying the tension, trauma, and sense of dislocation inherent in shedding the remnants of an old life and beginning a new one. Kirsten Lord (now Peyton Francis) finds herself facing a particularly complex set of circumstances. To begin with, her previous history as an outspoken critic of WITSEC's policies has earned her a number of enemies within the program itself. In addition, her belated efforts to halt the execution of an innocent man -- a man she helped convict -- make her the target of a vicious killer with an undisclosed agenda of his own. Throughout all this, the initial threat that drove her into hiding remains in force, looming relentlessly over the narrative.

The Program recounts, with considerable authority, one woman's struggle to make her way through this minefield of possibilities to a place of potential safety. Along the way, she finds a number of unexpected allies, including Alan Gregory, her program-appointed therapist; Lauren Crowder, Alan's very pregnant wife; and Carl Luppo, a retired Mafia hit man who takes Kirsten under his wing and saves her life on more than one occasion. White handles these various elements with an easy, understated mastery and treats his heroine's dilemma with intelligence, humor, and sympathy. The result is an incisive, psychologically acute thriller that successfully illuminates a little-known corner of the criminal justice system. It clearly represents a large step forward for a gifted, underrated writer.

--Bill Sheehan

Bill Sheehan reviews horror, suspense, and science fiction for Cemetery Dance, The New York Review of Science Fiction, and other publications. His book-length critical study of the fiction of Peter Straub, At the Foot of the Story Tree, has recently been published by Subterranean Press .

bn.com

Sentenced drug dealer Ernesto Castro warns New Orleans Assistant District Attorney Kirstin Lord that for every thing he loses, she will lose twice. A few weeks later, Kirstin goes to meet her spouse Robert at the Galatoire restaurant, but sees the hitman wearing the Saints cap assassinate her husband. Though grieving her loss, Kirstin realizes that Castro said "twice" and worries that her eight-year old daughter Amy will be next.Ironically, Kirstin, a vocal critic of the witness protection program hiding killers from justice, enters the Federal witness security program. She becomes Peyton Francis and Amy becomes Landon, and they relocate to Boulder. Needing psychological help to cope with the upheaval and tragedies of her life she begins to see Dr. Alan Gregory, whose other WITSEC patient is former hitman Carl Luppo, a killer of at least 15-20 people. Carl realizes that something is not right with Peyton's disguise and takes the two females under his personal protection whether it is from Castro or someone more sinister. The Program is an exciting thriller that provides an insightful look into the pros and cons of the witness protection program. Kirstin and Carl are intriguing characters hiding for different reasons. The return of Dr. Gregory is always a reason to rejoice, but in all honesty his role is a secondary catalyst to the fast-paced main plot starring Kirstin. Still, he plays a pivotal role and his sessions with his two patients seem very real, making the story line feel genuine. Best-selling author Stephen White may have written his best novel to date with this tremendous taut tale.

A page-turner!”—Iris Johansen

“You’ll not read a more suspenseful or better-crafted novel this year.”—Plain Dealer, Cleveland

From the Publisher