Williams walked into the execution chamber, a semioctagonal room with a padded green gurney and flooded with pale white light. He lay down. Guards strapped him in. A guard kept a hand on Williams' shoulder. A nurse had difficulty finding a vein in his left arm. She accidentally drew blood. It took 12 minutes to prepare the IVs. Williams held his head up. He looked at the press -- 17 journalists in all. He looked at his loved ones -- five of them present -- and mouthed words that journalists couldn't hear or understand.

At 12:21 a.m., the first drug, five grams of sodium pentothal to make Williams unconscious, was pumped into his arm. That was soon followed by injections of 50 cc's of pancuronium bromide to stop his breathing and 50 cc's of potassium chloride to stop his heart. After a few minutes, Williams' stomach begin to spasm and contract. Soon he was not moving. The roomful of witnesses sat in silence looking at Williams' unmoving body.

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For a moment their laughter stuns us into silence. A small TV flashes in the corner with a music video that zooms in and out on some big-haired Egyptian singer. A half-broken fan whirls drowsily above. The faint wailings of infants from the wards down the hall echo as if they are coming from a deep well. Finally someone speaks.

"There are so many disasters," says Manaf Yassen, a doctor whose lab coat looks a size or two too large. "We must laugh, because it is better than crying."

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