STONE AND KNOX were kept in the restraints for nearly six hours and slept the whole time. The guards who came to take the pair back to their cells seemed chagrined that they’d navigated the ordeal so easily.

They were dressed back in orange jumpsuits and hauled back to their cells. Each man had to exercise considerable self-control in the face of the guards’ taunts. Knox had to bite the inside of his lip while Stone just stared straight ahead unblinking and telling himself that an opportunity would present itself if he were patient.

An hour later, they were strip-searched again, cuffed and shackled and led to the cafeteria, where the cuffs were taken off so they could eat.

Knox’s belly was rumbling as they sat down at an unoccupied table. They stared around at the sea of other prisoners. Quickly counting, Stone arrived at nearly five hundred inmates, with well over three-quarters of them black, while all the guards he could see were white.

Some of the prisoners stared back at them with an array of expressions that ranged from curious to indifferent to hostile. Only a few people were talking. Most focused on their meals. Knox looked down as his food was slid in front of him.

After the attendant walked off he said to Stone, “I wonder if they have a nice cabernet to go with this slop?”

“Humor, Knox, I like that. Helps the time go by. What do you see out there?” He indicated the inmate population.

“Sorry asses just like us, only we haven’t committed any crime. Correction, I haven’t committed any crime.”

Stone took a bite of his food with a limp Styrofoam spoon that was the only utensil provided. “You’ve seen the insides of prisons before, haven’t you?”

“Yeah, but not as an inmate.”

“So what’s different? Think about it.”

Knox looked around. “Well, they seem a pretty quiet bunch to be the baddest asses in the land.”

“That’s right. Subdued, beaten down, scared. Anything else?”

Knox stared at one group closest to them. Four men, all black, who sat there idly prodding their food and not bothering to even look at each other.

Knox squinted at them, following their lethargic movements and glassy eyes. “And drugged?”

“And drugged. We know they have enough pills to do the job.”

“Do you think that’s where the pill shipments are coming? Here?”

“No. That stuff was all for street sale probably in New York, Philly, Boston, D.C. and other big cities up and down the East Coast. They probably just use a little overflow to knock these guys down.”

“Drugging prisoners involuntarily? That’s got to violate about a million rights.”

Stone suddenly bent down and started shoveling food in his mouth. Sensing why, Knox immediately did the same. The footsteps came up behind them and stopped.