Free The Shield of Darius by Allen Kent Page A

little demonstration told them you were going to be here.”
    “But if you’d been the guards and were told there was a new prisoner, wouldn’t you have been a bit curious?  Taken a good look at the new hostage? But they didn’t even glance at me.”
    “They don’t get paid to be curious,” Jim said from beside the stool.  “Just to keep us here.”
    “Yup.  That’s just it.  I’ve watched the groups that replaced them.  Even when they come the first time they don’t look us over.  They just leave what they bring and go.  I don’t think they have any idea who’s in the room, or if there are one or two of us.  In fact, I think they try not to know.  They’re scared.”
    “Maybe they always expect two.  And how can they come in eight times in four days and not know how many’s in here?  These guys may be slow, but they’re not stupid.”
    “You were in here alone for over a year.  Nobody ever said, ‘Where’s the other guy?’  There must be other rooms with just one.”  Ben turned again on the stool.  “Look at it this way.  They’ve been warned they aren’t supposed to talk to the prisoners.  They’re probably afraid of each other, so they go overboard and don’t pay any attention at all.  Suppose there are twenty rooms.  Some with two.  Some with one, so that makes it even harder to keep track.  And the numbers may not be constant from day to day.  Some moving in. Some moving out.  You notice the trays only have one spoon and one knife?  All purpose.  I might be off base, but I think the guards don’t pay attention from one visit to the next who’s in what room.”
    Jim shook his head skeptically. “Get down off of that stool. I feel like you’re preaching to me. Sit over on the bed and let’s talk this over.”  Ben jumped energetically from the stool.
    “Damn, you make me tired with all your bouncing around.”  Jim waited until Ben was still on the bed across the room.
    “There can’t be twenty rooms with people. I’d have heard more moving around.”
    “It could be a big place. Looks like an old hotel.”
    “So they don’t know who’s in here…assuming you’re right.  What difference does that make?”
    “What if one of us could get out without any sign of a break?  We just weren’t here when a new shift came the next day.  If they did notice one was gone, the other would just say someone came during the night and hauled him off.  I don’t think they’d question it.”
    “Two problems,” Jim said, still unconvinced.  “First, how do you get out without it looking like a break?  Then, what do you do once you’re outside?  You seem pretty sure now that we’re not in some city in Europe, but in some A-rab country. Right?”
    “Yeah,” Ben said thoughtfully.   “It’s the mud walls across the alley.  I don’t think we’d be seeing those, even in some ethnic section of a western city.”
    “So that’s just my point,” Jim insisted.  “We’d stick out like warts on a pretty girl’s nose and they’d pick us up in a minute.  I know these rooms aren’t the most secure in the world, but that’s because they know there’s no place to go once you get out.  Sort of like Alcatraz.  The cell’s only part of it.  Then you’ve got the damned sharks and undertow to deal with.”
    “Not likely to run into sharks in San Francisco Bay,” Ben objected.  “Could be one once in awhile, but not enough to keep you in.”
    “So there’s no sharks.  Hell, I was just using it as an example.  Nobody ever got away anyhow.  Even that guy in the movie never turned up again.  But forget that.  How you gonna get out of here?”
    Ben pointed at a square wooden panel below the high window.  “I think there must have been an air conditioner up there once.  If we’re careful about it, I think we can get that panel off without messing it up, take off the one on the other side and voila, we’re home free.”
    “But we’re on the second