AN AMBASSADOR'S WIFE IN IRAN
Cynthia Helms

Under Iranian law hijacking is punishable by death. A senior Iranian police official was quoted the next day by a member of the embassy as saying, "The hijackers will receive a fair trial. They will then be shot."

...mosaics, an art form that evolved from the days when mirrors ordered [to Iran] from Venice arrived broken so often that artisans fashioned the shattered pieces into decorations called a'ineh kari.

THE INNOCENT MAN
John Grisham

On August 11, 1995, a bizarre execution took place. Robert Brecheen, a forty-year-old white male, barely made it to the death chamber. The day before, he swallowed a handful of painkillers that he had somehow smuggled in and stockpiled. His suicide was to be his final effort at telling the state to go to hell, but the state prevailed. Brecheen was found unconscious by the guards and rushed to the hospital, where his stomach was pumped and he was stabilized enough to get hauled back to H Unit for a proper killing.

Every death row has at least one boss and several who want to be. There are factions vying for control. They prey on the weak, often demanding payment for the right to "live" on The Row. When word filtered to Greg that he needed to pay rent, he laughed and sent a message back that he would never pay a dime to anyone for living in such a rat hole.

In a small room behind the gurney, three executioners are hiding. They are not to be seen. Their identities are unknown around the prison. They are not state employees, but freelancers of some variety who were secretly hired by an old warden many years ago. Their arrivals and departures to and from McAlester are mysterious. Only the warden knows who they are, where they come from, and where they get their chemicals. He pays each of them $300 in cash for an execution.
The tubes from the inmate's arms run up and through two two-inch holes in the wall and into the small room where the executioners do their work.
When the formalities are tidied up, and the warden is certain there will be no last-minute phone calls, he nods and the injections start.
First a saline solution is pumped in to open the veins. The first drug is sodium thiopental, and it quickly knocks out the inmate. Another flushing of saline solution, then the second drug, vecuronium bromide, stops the breathing. Another quick flush and the third drug, potassium chloride, stops the heart.
The doctor appears, does a quick check, pronounces death.

Robert Mayer book The Dreams of Ada
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