"He has the room at the head of the stairs," Thornberry said.
The door was locked, but the psychologist produced a set of master
keys.
"I want a set of those, too," Bennington said.
The room was heavy with the smells of cheap whiskey, stale cigarette
smoke and human sweat. Two figures were sprawled on the bed. A hairy,
bearlike man, Slater; a big well-built brunette.
Thornberry squinted through the gloom, then turned on the lights.
"That's Mona Sitwell," he said, "and I'm sure she was supposed to be
on orders to leave here two weeks ago."
Bennington remembered the case, the spinster who had found her parents
a hindrance to her extensive enjoyment of male companionship. She had
literally chopped up their objections.
"Follow through on the orders you give sometime," Bennington said
dryly. "You may meet a few more surprises."
The man on the bed stirred, threw his arm up over his eyes. "What do
you want?" he mumbled sleepily.
Bennington mentally cursed the Civil Service regulations which tied
his hands, and left him only one thing to say: "Your immediate
resignation."
* * * * *
"Message Center, sir."
"Go ahead." The general looked at the desk clock. 1515. He could guess
what they wanted to tell him.
"Sir, the new consignment will be here in about ten minutes."
"Thanks. Pass the word along to Dr. Thornberry and add, I'll meet him
at the flagpole in five minutes."
Bennington pushed back his chair, slowly stood up. This had already
been a full day's work.
Slater had been worse sober than he had been sleepy and half-drunk.
His covering barrage of threats on leaving the prison had been equally
divided between the general's personal health and the entire prison
setup.
Thornberry had screened the other guards. And, after sitting in on
only two sessions, Bennington had at last found one small reason to
like his chief assistant. The psych-expert could spot a liar almost
before the man opened his mouth.
But right now, and, at the wages offered, probably for a long time,
Duncannon was very short of guards.
Judkins was ready in The Cage. An efficient man, but he had been a
little resentful at the extra work involved in moving his equipment.
The prisoners would remain in The Cage overnight, except for their
trips to the Mess Hall. A reorganized supply room had disgorged more
than enough cots and blankets to convert The Cage into a temporary
dormitory.
Bennington riffled the papers on his desk showing when the prisoners
on hand had been received and how long they had been ready to go to
their assigned prison. This matter took top priority. Some of the
people had been here over a month. If he could push through the plan
to charge the states for every day Duncannon kept a prisoner after the
criminal was ready for shipment, then the various states should each
pay, as a rough estimate showed....
But the clock on the desk showed 1520, time to meet Thornberry. With
longer than usual steps, Bennington strode out of his office and out
the main door of the Administration Building.
* * * * *
Thornberry was pacing around the flagpole directly opposite the main
entrance.
"This man, Dalton," the psychologist said, falling in step with the
general, "you know he escaped from us twice."
"Make him the first through," and Bennington dismissed the subject.
"I'm more interested in this. Are there any ex-service men among the
group?"
Thornberry sniffed, "Still worried about our conditioning and our
security, general? I repeat, even though we do not use the lobotomies
and other techniques of our cold-war competitors, we can nevertheless
condition anyone sent to us so that he will not make any trouble."
Bennington shrugged, "I'd like to see you work on a para-commando. Or
one of the General Staff."
Thornberry, now leading the way through the Processing Building,
called back over his shoulder. "How many of them end up in prison? I
mean, from the General Staff? The para-coms do, of course, they just
can't adjust to civilian life and I think the Army should do something
about that before they discharge them. But they never come here
without an accompanying court order allowing us to use the eyeball
technique."
Along the short path, enclosed by barbed wire, from Processing into
The Cage. Swiftly along the corridor behind the one-way vision
mirrors, down the walk to the gate in the barbed wire.
Bennington looked around and nodded approval: his reception committee
for the new arrivals was waiting.
He looked across the river toward Harrisburg. Yes, just turning into
the bridge approach, two tractor-trailer combos, preceded and followed
by white cars.
Bennington glanced around again. From the roof of The Cage, Ferguson,
drafted as a guard for this emergency, waved and lovingly patted the
butt of his submachine gun.
One of the regular guards gave the general a sound-powered megaphone.
He nodded thanks, lifted it.
"Give me your attention!"
"The procedure is as usual except that, when the prisoners go into The
Cage, they are going to get an overnight conditioning treatment.
"But until they've had that treatment, you must be alert! These are
all dangerous men."
Beside the general, Thornberry whispered hearty agreement. "Yes, yes!
Except for Rooney, everyone on that list is here for armed robbery or
murder and usually both."
Bennington lowered his megaphone. "I almost forgot to tell you. I
added a complete physical search to your metal-detectors, we're doing
it right inside the door to the corridor.
"And we're keeping all their personal effects. That was bad, Dr.
Thornberry, letting them have their money. As long as a prisoner has
cash, you can't trust any guard."
Thornberry froze. "As prison psychologist, I protest. I consider those
procedures an unwarranted invasion of physical privacy and a forcing
of a man into dependency with traumatic effects--"
"I would much rather make a prisoner dependent on my good will than
have him bribe my guards, doctor. And I would much rather invade his
privacy than have him invade my stomach with a knife made out of bone.
"A metal-spotter is, perhaps, good, but too many killing tools can get
by them."
Thornberry seemed more than willing to continue the discussion, but
the tractor-trailers were pulling off the bridge. After a moment's
jockeying, they turned so that the back of the trailers pointed toward
The Cage.
[Illustration]
* * * * *
A corporal eased out of the white car that had led the convoy. He
shifted his shotgun to his left arm, saluted, said, "General
Bennington? Corporal Forester, with thirty-four prisoners."
"Thirty-four? We expected thirty-five."
"Ralph Musto tried to get another idea in the Harrisburg terminal.
He'll be in the hospital about ten days."
"Musto?" For a moment, the name meant nothing to Bennington.
"Connecticut, sir, one of the murder and bank cases. Are you prepared
to accept delivery of the others?"
"Yes, we are. But we are unfortunately a little short-handed
today...."
"We always stay around till the boys are in The Cage, sir," the
corporal said.
"Thanks. Start unloading."
Corporal Forester saluted again and turned to face the vans. He waved
his arm and another trooper unlocked the door of the trailer to the
general's left. A group of men slowly jumped out and stood blinking in
the sun.
A trooper opened a large compartment beneath the van and yanked out
several large bags, all locked, all bulging, all the type Bennington
had known too well since the Second War.
The prisoners' personal effects, Bennington decided, and lifted his
megaphone.
"Form a single line facing the gate," he commanded.
There was an excess of shuffling movement, but at last a line was
formed.
Corporal Forester waved his hand again. The doors of the trailer were
locked and it started across the bridge.
Then the second trailer was unloaded and sent away. When its cargo had
added themselves to the line, the corporal again approached
Bennington.
"Want a roll call, sir?"
"The count is correct, but a roll call will help get them in order, in
the right frame of mind." Bennington raised his megaphone to his lips.
"Now get this! When your name is called, sound out HERE and run for
that gate. Then walk up the path and through the open door.
"John Musto."
A stockily-built, dark-faced man stepped from the line and with an
exaggerated slowness dawdled toward the gate. His pose lasted only a
moment. One of the Duncannon guards stepped forward and smacked his
rifle barrel across Musto's kidneys. The bank robber and murderer
pitched headlong to his knees, got up slowly with a snarl. But when
the guard gestured again with his rifle, Musto broke into a shambling
run.
Bennington waited until the first of the brothers stood panting at the
gate, then called, "Pietro Musto."
One example had been enough. Pietro took off on the double. In five
minutes the last man had vanished into The Cage.
"You get these, too, sir." Corporal Forester, with a bundle of papers.
"Right. And thanks for staying, corporal. By the way, isn't there
something I sign?"
The trooper produced a form and a pen. Bennington signed and they
saluted each other. The corporal grinned, then his expression sobered.
"That's a real bunch there, sir."
"We're conditioning them immediately, corporal."
"Good idea, sir. The sooner, the better!"
With another salute, the corporal turned to his car and Bennington
started toward The Cage.
* * * * *
Inside The Cage, Bennington went into the corridor that led behind the
mirrors. He wanted to watch the weapons-check and the conditioning; he
found Thornberry waiting for him.
Bennington looked through the mirrors at the men standing as he and
his party had stood yesterday. Room One of The Cage was marked off
into numbered squares. Each man stood on a number, separated from his
brother cons by about ten square feet. They knew they were being
watched, although the men behind the mirrors were invisible to the
prisoners. They stirred restlessly, standing first on one foot, then
on the other, looking uneasily in all directions and seeing nothing
but their own reflections.
"Dalton is on Ten," Thornberry said.
Bennington looked and saw an exceedingly average-looking man. Wouldn't
notice him in a crowd, the general thought and realized that he had
learned one reason for Dalton's success.
"Start the random sequence with him," he said. The system was set up
so that no prisoner knew when he would be summoned.
"I told them to do that," Thornberry said.
"Number Ten", the loud-speaker boomed.
The general moved down the corridor until he was looking into the
hallway between Room One and Room Two. Until yesterday, the prisoners
had simply walked down the corridor while detectors checked them for
the presence of metals. They had then been held at the end of the
hallway until they had stripped themselves of everything that had
registered on the screens.
Today was different. Inside the door Dalton was being thoroughly and
completely searched. Nothing was found, but Bennington could sense
Thornberry's grim disapproval of the procedure.
Dalton was then shoved around the first of the hastily-erected screens
and ordered into a chair. A doctor beside the chair was ready with an
injection so smoothly and quickly that Dalton was under mild sedation
almost before he was aware of the needle's sting.
Across from Dalton, seated at a small table behind a spin-dizzy wheel
of flickering lights and ever-centering spiral, one of Thornberry's
psych-staff waited for a nod from the doctor. Then he started the
wheel spinning and Bennington could see his lips move.
After a moment, the psychologist turned his head to the doctor and
Bennington lip-read the word, "hypno." The doctor slowly put down one
of the biggest hypodermic needles Bennington had ever seen.
Less roughly, the guard led Dalton around the second screen.
At the end of the corridor Judkins was ready. He adjusted the big hood
over Dalton's head.
And Bennington turned away.
He had seen too much of the conditioning process, beginning in its
early days when the Army had realized its value in reducing the
manpower needed to watch the refuse of the cold war.
The POWS from the battle of the little undeclared wars; the refugee
camps, with their possible and probable subversives; the Army
disciplinary stations....
He waited farther down the corridor where he could look into Room Two.
In a few minutes Dalton entered. His face was subtly changed. A guard
gestured toward the piles of cots and blankets.
Dalton took one of the cots and two of the blankets, moved to Square
Number Ten on this side of the building and began making up his bed.
When the job was completed he sat down.
His back was toward the general and Bennington found himself wishing
he could see the prisoner's face. In the other room, Dalton had been
carefully, thoughtfully staring around.
His posture now spoke of a total lack of interest in his present
surroundings.
Bennington glanced at his watch and estimated the time needed on
Dalton. Hm-m-m, little better than five minutes. Of course, if a
prisoner was given that second shot.... Well, the average would still
be about five minutes.
Might as well go back to the office and work out how much each state
owed the prison.
* * * * *
Thornberry's call came at 1915. "We've finished, general, and we're
ready to feed them. Of course, we still have some things to put away
over here--"
"Skip it," Bennington said. "We can have that done tomorrow morning."
"Judkins has asked permission to go to Harrisburg tonight. He wants to
see his sister about an apartment there. Several of the permanent
personnel do that. It's easy to get back and forth, and there's more
to do--"
"Tell him to take off. And let's see, we'll need him in the morning,
but maybe we can give him the afternoon off in return for his overtime
work tonight."
"I like that, general, and I'll do it. Now, I'm going to see that the
prisoners are fed, then I'd like to see you in your office."
"I want to see you, too, Dr. Thornberry. Tell Ferguson to arrange
supper for two over here--I haven't eaten either."
"I'll be with you in about fifteen minutes."
* * * * *
Because the office was sound-conditioned, Bennington did not know that
the riot had started until the door slammed open and three men jammed
the doorway, all three trying to get in at once.
Acting by reflex, Bennington shot the man in the center. The other
two, entangled with the dead man, also tumbled to the floor.
The general promptly shot twice more.
Then he paused to think.
One glance told him his instinctive action had been correct. The man
in the center had been Pietro Musto, carrying a carving knife. The
other two ... yes, they had been in the group that had arrived this
afternoon.
But what was wrong? He had watched these men being conditioned....
A burst from a submachine gun echoed through the open door.