laugh and he stretched out his hand.
"Thanks, Mossback."

"Hell, Jim, I owe you the thanks. That was the best training problem
my men ever had, taught 'em more in one night that they can ever learn
until the real stuff starts whistling around."

Bennington glanced over Mosby's shoulder at the place he was heading
for: the hot seat, Chief Scott's desk chair, bright under the TV
spotlights, the center of every camera focus.

"You've got work to do, I know, so where's that Thornberry?" Mosby
growled. "He should be with you."

"Upstairs, asleep. He said that he was only the assistant warden, then
asked Chief Scott for an empty cell and left me."

"Why?"

"It's very simple: he's still not convinced that I had to shoot
Clarens."

Mosby grunted deep disgust, looked over his shoulder toward the hot
seat, looked again at Bennington. "You should have shaved.

"No, wait a minute, I guess not. Just go the way you are and give 'em
hell."

Bennington rubbed his chin and the bristle of his late-night,
early-morning beard crackled crisply.

The problem he had anticipated was now here, as he had known it would
be. And the answer was nowhere, which equally had been a matter of
foreknowledge.

* * * * *

"What will I say, General Mosby?" Bennington murmured. "Cue me in. You
were always the best public relations officer either of us ever had."

"Jim, from anyone else--" Mosby started, stopped, grinned. "The
trouble is, you're right.

"But this time we don't need any style, this time all we need is the
truth.

"Tell them why the prison wasn't running right, how the riot happened
and why you are where you are tonight, and what the prisons need to
make them run better...."

Mosby stopped again, and this time was very slow in re-starting.

"When you get there, I don't know, Jim. What _are_ you going to tell
them?"

_I wish I could be sure, Mossback._

_I know I can make that hot seat hotter by stating no one else knows
either, because we've never decided what a prison is for ... society's
protection, a place to put people like Clarens, where they won't
affect the lives of normal folk? A deterrent, a threat, a place to
point to as a warning not to break the law? Or, as Thornberry would
have it, the first step to returning people to normal lives as
functioning members of society again?_

_Dare I say that the only thing certain about prisons is that so far they
haven't worked ... that st