Part 5 (2/2)
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, Mus...o...b..oke 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.
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