He picked up his desk chair and smashed the picture window looking out
over the moat on the west side. Then he smashed with the chair again
to remove the fragments that stuck up like jagged knives.
A quick leap over the sill into the darkness, a twenty-foot sprint,
and he was able to throw himself down on the steep slope that five
feet farther on became the moat.
Just in time, he discovered. When he peered through the sparse grass,
he could see two men in his office. One had a shotgun, the other a
rifle. The man with the rifle lifted it to his shoulder and fired into
the ceiling.
Most of the staff, all but six of the guards up there, Bennington
thought.
Resting his right hand against his left arm, he took careful aim and
fired. The man with the rifle staggered and fell. The one with the
shotgun dropped completely out of sight.
Bennington heard someone shouting hoarsely about the lights.
The first floor blacked out.
He took a deep breath, held it, slowly released it. Then he was able
to think.
How this had started was for the moment unimportant. First came the
problem of regaining control.
To regain control, he needed help. To get help he had to reach the
nearest visiphone.
Glass tinkled to his right. Almost too late Bennington remembered how
his white hair could reflect the lights from the second-story windows.
He rolled rapidly to his left and a little more down the slope.
The dew-wet grass chilled his face and hands. His long legs felt the
water of the moat creep up past his knees.
A semiautomatic rifle with carefully timed shots searched the area
where he had been. "Good man," he noted professionally and replied
with a pistol shot. He rolled again back to where he had been, but
still further down the slope.
The rifle spoke copper-coated syllables once more, with a sequence of
shots that started where he had fired from. But this time the sequence
hunted further to both right and left.
This could go on all night.
He _had_ to get to a visiphone. Yet he couldn't leave here. The moment
he did, the convicts has a wide-open road to freedom.
The man with the rifle was good, Bennington noted again. His shots
were grass-clippers that could have substituted for a lawn mower.
Then a submachine gun chuckled crisply from Bennington's left. There
was a howl of pain. The rifle stopped looking for the general.
Bennington began crawling along the edge of the moat. That submachine
gun had spoken for his side of the argument and he had a big need for
the author who had used its words so well. He stopped crawling.
Someone was coming toward him.
"General?"
"Ferguson!"
"Yes, sir. You all right?"
"Yes. And you?"
"Fine, sir, but it was close for a minute."
"Tell me."
"I was coming in the door to Message Center, going to put my gun back
in the armory, then get your supper from the kitchen. I heard someone
screeching down the hall and then a couple of shots. The clerk on duty
got up and started toward the hall door. But it banged open in his
face and someone emptied a pistol into him. I let loose a burst and
jumped back. The guy with the pistol came through the door, still
hollering. I gave him a belly-full, then waited a moment to see if
anyone was behind him. Nobody was. I remembered hearing a window
smash, so I looked around this way for you."
"You've got how much ammo?"
"About half a clip, sir."
"We need help. I know they've got Message Centre, but--"
"The private line from the house, sir?"
"Right. And you'll stay here."
Ferguson understood. "No one will get out this way, sir, but I'll go
with you part way so I can cover the door out of Message Center, too."
No more words. Not even a handshake.
These two had worked together, fought together, before. Speeches
weren't needed.
* * * * *
Bennington's house was dark and, because it was still new to him, he
barked his shins twice before he found the visiphone. To save time and
avoid any lights, he first cut out the visual circuit and then he
simply dialed "0".
"Operator," a lilting voice replied.
"Connect me with the nearest State Police Barracks, please. Warden of
Duncannon Prison speaking."
"One moment, please." Not a change in the lilt.