And sounds hit his ears, soft sounds that had been muffled by the long mess hall between him and their source, low sounds further kept from him by the light wind from the north.
The lights in the barracks had been off since 2100, except, of course, for the eerie-blue night lights, and the prisoners should be in their bunks, asleep or at least silent, immobile.
But why were all the lights off in the compound, and Bennington damned himself for not seeking the answer to the question before.
Thornberry would tell me there is no need for light; that the prisoners can't escape because their drugging has made them unable, or their conditioning has made them afraid, to leave the prison.
The sounds, the flickering like fireflies or carefully thumbed flashlights, didn't come from his near right, Number One, minor crimes, or Number Two, major crimes exclusive of murder.
They came from between Three and Four.
Number Three. Psychos, sex deviates and murderers, with a couple of padded cells and barred windows needed upstairs, even though the inmates were conditioned.
Number Four changed by the addition of an extra latrine for the second floor. Females on the first, juvenile delinquents on the second.
Bennington had learned to move like a ghost, move quietly or die, on the almost forgotten battlefields of a police action in Korea. He had had a post-graduate course in the South-East Asian jungles. On the Chilean desert he had added to his skills.
He moved now as he had then.