Forty Days at Kamas (40 page)

One by one, the commissioners filed out except for Reineke and Knopfler.

"How long do I have to wait before somebody lets me in on the secret?" I asked as soon as we were alone. "Why is everybody here walking on eggshells?"

"Come on over to my office," Reineke answered. "I've got something to show you."

We walked in silence to the outbuilding where the Security Department had its command post. But instead of going to Reineke's office, we went to cellblocks at the rear of the building. There Reineke unlocked a sliding door and led Knopfler and me down a flight of stairs into a place that looked much like the isolation block. Down the center of a concrete–floored corridor ran an evil–smelling drainage channel while to either side were rows of steel doors resembling those of isolator cells. At the end of the corridor were four interrogation rooms with eye–level peepholes. Reineke gestured for me to look through the peephole of the first such room on the left.

Through the hole I could see two of Reineke's security officers standing on either side of a middle–aged prisoner whose wrists were manacled behind his back to a steel chair bolted to the floor. I recognized the prisoner's long face and sad, sleepy eyes immediately as those of Steve Bernstein, the pharmaceutical salesman from Manhasset who regaled us on our first day at Kamas. Now I listened through the hole in the door as Reineke's men badgered him into confirming the points of a confession they had written out for him.

"So it was at Green River that State Security recruited you as an informant?" the senior interrogator prompted.

"Yes," Bernstein answered wearily.

"And after your transfer to Kamas, you continued informing on other prisoners through Jack Whiting and members of his security detail?"

"Yes."

"And after the revolt broke out last month, you re–established contact with members of State Security and were issued an electronic device that you used to submit reports about camp defenses and security arrangements?"

"Yes."

Reineke tapped me softly on the shoulder and led me to the next window. Through the peephole I recognized the bruised and bloodied face of Brian Gaffney. From the condition of his face as well as the threatening posture of his interrogators, it appeared that Gaffney had not given them his fullest cooperation.

"Let me get this straight. You admit that the Wart recruited you as an informant while you were in the isolator. And you admit to giving sensitive information about camp defenses to Bernstein when he recontacted you. And you admit attacking Glenn Reineke with a knife this morning. But you don't admit being part of any conspiracy?"

"That's right," Gaffney lisped, barely moving his grotesquely swollen lips.

"And you never had contact with Randy Skinner or Ramon?"

"Never."

"You didn't receive instructions from them or anyone else about attacking black or Hispanic prisoners?"

"Never."

"And you aren't aware of any plan to incite racial violence so State Security would have a pretext to storm the camp?"

"No way," Gaffney replied. "The only one I went after was Reineke."

I turned away from the peephole and looked at Reineke.

"Gaffney jumped you with a knife?"

"He missed my neck by less than an inch," Reineke answered. "I sensed somebody coming at me from behind and ducked. One of Gary’s men pulled him off me and took some bad cuts before we got Gaffney under control."

He led me to the door of the third cell, where the gangster, Randy Skinner, maintained a sullen silence.

"There's no point in denying it, Skinner," the interrogator pressed. "Before he died, Ramon told us all about how the two of you killed Jabril and tried to nail Frank Brancato. The only thing we don't know is who else was working with you. You could make it a lot easier on yourself if you'd tell us."

No response.

"There's no point in counting on your thieves' code of silence, Skinner. Brancato has already washed his hands of you and has named the men he suspects were working with you. Do you want us to read you their names?"

Silence.

"All right, let's put aside the question of who else was involved. Why not tell us what the Wart promised you? We know he wanted you to start a race riot so that he'd have a cover for storming the camp. What was the bait? Transfer? Early release? Letting you take over Brancato's position as capo?"

More silence.

"That's too bad, Skinner. Because we're prepared to do whatever it takes to find out what kind of deal the Wart offered you. So think about it. You have five minutes until kickoff."

I turned away from the door with a sinking feeling in my stomach and a confusion I had never felt before about the ends and means of our revolt. It would be naïve to think that our newborn camp government, unlike all other governments in all ages, could have survived without an effective internal security service. But, having seen the depths to which the State Security Department had sunk, how far along this path were we willing to follow? Did our taking of the moral high ground against the Unionists tighten the moral constraints we operated under or relieve us of them? The answers were no longer as clear as I had thought them to be.

I left the security offices under a promise to return after dinner. As troubling and absorbing as the day’s events had been, my thoughts returned immediately to the folded sheet of paper that Libby Bertrand had given me on our return from Provo. I removed it from inside my coveralls and held it up to the light. It appeared to be the same kind of ordinary notepaper that Helen Sigler had used for her earlier messages. As usual, I could not detect any impressions left by pen or pencil.

The moment I returned to my bunk, I gathered my materials for developing the message chemically and deciphering its contents. Then I set to work. Some two hours later I scrawled the following message on a separate sheet of paper:

MESSAGE SEVEN (7). WIFE AND YOUNGER DAUGHTER REMAIN IN DETENTION NEAR PHILADELPHIA AFTER ATTEMPTING DEPARTURE ON CANCELED EXIT VISAS. OLDER DAUGHTER SAFE IN UTAH AND RETURNING EAST SOON. PLAN UNDER WAY VIA INLAWS TO REINSTATE FAMILY EXIT VISAS INCLUDING YOURS. YOUR RELEASE INTO EXILE LIKELY BUT ONLY REPEAT ONLY IF YOU EXIT CAMP BEFORE REVOLT ENDS. RELIABLE INFO SAYS ATTACK COMING IN SEVEN (7) TO TEN (10) DAYS WHEN ARMOR ARRIVES BY RAIL. TROOP DISPOSITIONS AND ORDER OF BATTLE FOLLOW. PLEASE PASS TO OUR MUTUAL FRIEND….

C
HAPTER
38

"The Party denied the free will of the individual–and at the same time it exacted his willing self–sacrifice. It denied his capacity to choose between two alternatives–and at the same time it demanded that he should constantly choose the right one. It denied his power to distinguish good and evil–and at the same time it spoke pathetically of guilt and treachery… There was somewhere an error in the calculation; the equation did not work out."
— Arthur Koestler,
Darkness at Noon

MONDAY, JUNE 17

DAY 30

Reineke never appeared at his office Saturday evening. Nor could I find him on Sunday. Apart from wanting tell him my impressions of the visits to Orem and Provo, I was eager to talk to him about the choice I faced between remaining in camp to defend the revolt or finding a way out to rejoin my family.

Three months earlier, Ben Jackson had told Reineke and me his dream of a Kamas camp under siege. His dream had foreseen an assault against the camp and had also predicted that I would be out of Kamas before the assault began. After hearing Jackson's prediction, Reineke had promised to help me find a way out if I would use my freedom to tell the outside world about Kamas. Would he remember his promise?

Late Sunday evening, Ralph Knopfler passed the word that Reineke wanted me to attend a short meeting the next morning to discuss camp security in the wake of Saturday's bloodshed. After breakfast Knopfler, Pete Murphy, Gary Toth, and I appeared in Reineke's office. Reineke's eyes were bloodshot, his cheeks hollow, and his voice low and monotone. He thanked us all for coming and launched directly into an account of what he had learned from the interrogations of Bernstein, Gaffney, and Skinner.

"As of this morning, Bernstein and Gaffney have made what amount to full confessions. Skinner still refuses to cooperate and is getting ‘round–the–clock attention until he changes his mind.

"Right now we're fairly confident that there were three separate operations going on, one centered on Bernstein, one on Gaffney, and the third on Skinner and Ramon Sanchez. Bernstein's role was that of a conventional stay–behind informant. He picked up what he could about our defenses and security measures and reported it to Whiting by radio.

"But since Whiting and his people couldn't easily reach their other informants inside camp, they also had to use Bernstein as a go–between. They must have been desperate to take that risk. Any one of the informants could have compromised all the others, as Gaffney eventually did. As it turned out, our technical people knew early on that someone in camp was using a clandestine radio but they had no means of finding it until Gaffney led us to Bernstein.

"The Wart must have been crossing his fingers that Gaffney would be able to kill me off quickly and escape through the deserter's gate without his link to Bernstein ever coming to light. All the knife attacks were timed to coincide with the daily call for deserters.

"So why were the bosses willing to risk their entire informant network just to have Gaffney get rid of me? Several reasons, but I think the main one is that I rejected their recruitment approach. Because, at the same time they pitched me, they also pitched Majors, and my hunch is that he took the bait. They must have calculated that, with me out of the way, nobody else would have been able to stand up to Majors when he finally sold us out.

"Which brings me to the operation centered on Ramon and Skinner. On one level, it seems to have been a crude attempt to instigate a brawl between the politicals and the thieves. Or maybe it started with Skinner wanting a green light from the bosses to take Brancato's place as capo of thieves. In any case, the bet didn't pay off. Instead, we've shut down the Wart’s entire network and Mitch Majors is under more of a cloud than ever."

"How bad is the case against Majors?" I asked. "I saw his
tête–à–tête
with Boscov in the no–man's–land Saturday morning before we left for Provo. Did the long–range dish microphones pick up any of their conversation?"

"We got the gist of it," Reineke replied. "Majors pressed for more concessions to help him persuade us to go back to work. There's nothing particularly damning in that. What troubled me more was his insistence on seeing the results of his own case review. They even dickered over what rank and pay he would be entitled to if he were released."

"Asking for a case review doesn't make him a traitor," Knopfler said. "Just about everybody in camp has a petition in the works, including most of the commission. Is there something else that leads you to think he intends to sell us down the river?"

"There is, but I can't talk about it quite yet," Reineke told us. "In the meantime, I want all of you to keep your eyes on him."

For a moment no one spoke, then Gary Toth raised his hand.

"I've got a question," he said. "When their interrogations end, what are we supposed to do with Bernstein, Gaffney, and the others? Put them on trial, execute them, or just hold onto them? If we don't make an example of them now, we may regret it later when things get hot."

"I wouldn’t want to risk making martyrs out of them," Knopfler replied. "Let's keep them on ice."

"Ralph is right," Reineke agreed. "If there’s a settlement, we might be able to trade them for something useful. If the bosses storm the place, all bets are off, anyway."

Toth looked around the table before speaking again.

"Just tell me one thing: why did we ever go to the trouble of chopping every stool pigeon we could lay our hands on if we don't care who survives us? If we leave these bastards alive, the moment they're free they'll take their revenge on a whole new generation of prisoners. Say what you want, Glenn, but unless you're here in the cellblock with me when the tanks come rolling in, these stoolies are going to go down with the revolt."

Reineke gave Toth a reproachful look but said nothing.

Our discussion went on for another half–hour, mainly about the chances for a settlement and, if none were reached, how soon government forces might attack us. Based on Helen Sigler's coded message and information from other sources, we were inclined to agree that prospects for a settlement were dim and that an attack would likely come within the week.

When the meeting ended, Knopfler and Reineke set off for the other side of the women's camp to attend the commission's scheduled weekly meeting. Reineke suggested that I come along because he wanted to nominate me to replace George Perkins as a commissioner. I thanked him for his confidence in me but declined.

"Nonsense, Paul, you're just the kind of person we need. Besides, you're practically a commissioner already after attending so many of our sessions."

"Glenn, if I can have a moment with you privately, there's something I'd like to say that may help you understand."

"Fine, let's get out of the sun," Reineke suggested, pointing toward the nearest barracks. But before we reached the barracks, Mitch Majors and Chuck Quayle overtook us from behind and urged us not to be late for the weekly meeting. Reineke shrugged and suggested we resume our conversation in his office after the meeting. At his request, I agreed to attend but only as an observer.

When we arrived, Colonel Mitch Majors stood at the head of the conference table and gazed out confidently upon his fellow commissioners. He looked commanding in the neatly pressed desert camouflage fatigues that he had borrowed from the camp storeroom. I noticed him steal an affectionate glance at his personal secretary, a petite dark–haired woman of about thirty who sat along the wall with her stenographic pad at the ready.