Forty Days at Kamas (37 page)

"Are you sure you're ready to go up against troops with assault rifles? How will you even get close enough to land a punch?"

"I probably shouldn't tell you this, Paul, but soon we're going to have a lot more than punches to throw around," D.J. confided. "The techs are making us high–powered crossbows, super slingshots, throwing darts, and all kinds of standoff weapons that we can use to hit the enemy at a distance. We're also learning how to capture their assault rifles and body armor to use against them. I think it's going to be more of an even match than anyone expects."

"Honestly, D.J., what chance do you think you have of living through the first assault?"

"Less than ten–to–one is my guess," he replied easily, looking me straight in the eye. "Paul, I realize that State Security will never give in to our demands and that the only way out of here is in a body bag. I just want to go down swinging."

"You're sure of that?"

"Dead sure," he replied with his old boyish smile.

D.J. and I arrived at the entrance to the women's jail compound and presented ourselves to the guard on duty. D.J. was waved in right away. I told the guard that I had an appointment with Glenn Reineke and waited while he scanned his clipboard for my name. At last he waved me in, too.

I made my way to the one–story brick outbuilding that served as the Security Commissioner’s offices. The duty officer led me to one of the rear offices that had been converted to a conference room.

"Come on in, Paul; we were just getting started," Reineke greeted me when he spotted me outside the door. With him were Pete Murphy and Gary Toth. Ralph Knopfler arrived a moment later and took a seat beside me.

"Lieutenant," he told the duty officer as soon as Knopfler was seated. "Please shut the door and don’t let anyone in until I tell you."

"Yes, Sir," the lieutenant replied before closing the door.

"The reason I called you," Reineke began, "is that I need your advice on a situation that arose over the weekend. Last Thursday after Colonel Majors and I had our weekly conference with the Warden and General Boscov, the General called me aside for a private talk. He started off by praising my war record. Then he said he had read my security file from cover to cover and thought I had been wrongly convicted on the desertion charge. He offered me what Doug Chambers offered Colonel Majors two weeks ago: expedited review before a special hearing panel. I reminded him that I didn’t think any commissioner should get a rehearing until after the revolt was settled. When he finally got it through his head that I wouldn't take the bait, he backpedaled to erase the impression he’d been trying to recruit me.

"The moment Boscov left, I looked for Colonel Majors, wondering what sort of pitch the Warden may have made to him while I was with Boscov. When I caught up with him, I told him what Boscov had offered me and asked what Rocco had said to him.

"Majors became extremely defensive. He told me he didn’t think expedited case reviews were at all improper for commission members and that if I wanted to exclude myself, fine. But others had waited a long time for wrongs to be righted and it would be unfair to deny them their moment before a panel. In the meantime, he said he intended to exercise his privilege as chief commissioner to meet with his counterparts in State Security whenever and wherever he wanted, without consulting me or anyone else. Then he turned on his heel and left."

"It seems to me that Colonel Majors cares more about getting his career back than he does about the revolt," Knopfler remarked.

"I don't like the sound of it, either," Pete Murphy agreed. "I think he's made up his mind to do what's best for Mitch Majors and to hell with everyone else."

"Ditto that," Toth said. "I wouldn't trust him, regardless. It all adds up. Start with his public and private statements: rarely anti–Unionist, usually sympathetic to the bosses. Then look at who he hangs out with: Perkins, a die–hard Unionist; Quayle, a fellow traveler; and the crooked judges, Richardson and O'Rourke. Then there's his personal life: right from the start, he set up a private suite for himself and has had special meals delivered to him from the mess hall. He plays favorites in doling out privileges and generally throws his weight around like he's cock–of–the–roost. The latest is that he's got his mistress on his clerical staff. It all comes down to a question of character. If he'll cheat in small things, what's to hold him back from the big ones?"

"What do you think, Paul?" Reineke asked.

"I've had an intuitive suspicion of the Colonel for some time," I told him. "But I've kept it on hold until I had facts to justify it. For me, the central issue is whether the Colonel has put himself at the head of the revolt because he genuinely believes in it or because he thinks he can manipulate it to his own advantage. If he believes in the revolt but has some flaw that makes him act high–handedly, perhaps he can be forgiven. But if he deliberately sought the post of leader for the purpose of selling us out, then we need to move him aside before he can do any more harm."

"What kind of harm do you expect?" Murphy asked. "We're the ones who control the security and defense forces. He can't do much without us knowing about it first."

"He could create a pretext for the other side to attack," Reineke suggested. "Or fail to respond when they do. Or he could try to dismiss us and order our men to surrender. Paul is right: we need to be ready in case he steps out of line."

"And we need to keep Perkins, Quayle, and the judges under twenty–four–hour–a–day surveillance," Toth added. "If they do anything suspicious, I think we ought to bring them in for questioning or maybe even put them on ice for a while."

"We've already got four or five in custody for Unionist agitation, don't we?" Murphy pointed out. "What's a few more?"

"They might even welcome it," Reineke observed. "You couldn't ask for a better alibi when the revolt is over."

****

The bosses' next provocation was not long in coming. Late that afternoon another appeal for defections began blaring from the loudspeakers:

"Prisoners, vote with your feet! Show them what you really think of the revolt. Leave the camp now through the gaps in the east wall or through the main gate. We will not fire at any unarmed prisoner who crosses our lines. Your own commission has ordered its troops not to prevent you from leaving. So why hesitate? Leave today and you will not be punished…"

Over the weekend the Information Department had recorded a response to this speech similar to the response Glenn Reineke had delivered the previous Friday. The recording assured prisoners that anyone who wished to leave the camp and surrender to State Security was free to do so without fear of reprisals. The defenders at the barricades were ordered to prevent no one from deserting.

Unlike Friday, however, when those most tempted to make their exit had hesitated for fear of catching a spear on their way out, today a small number of prisoners seemed ready to bolt. I watched them from a nearby roof. They joined the throng of prisoners watching from a distance, jostled their way to the front, and finally the first of them broke free and ran for the gate.

As the first defector passed between two of our barricades, every spectator held his breath. In an instant, a prisoner ran out from behind a barricade in hot pursuit but halted when his commanding officer bellowed for him to stop. The defector gained speed, vaulted over the waist–high new inner wall to a chorus of catcalls and escaped through the eastern gate, where warders pulled him to safety.

Seeing the first defector reach the gate without harm, two more bolted from the cordon of spectators toward the gate and encountered no interference, except for shouts of "Traitor!" from their fellow prisoners. Then I saw a familiar figure break free from the crowd and start off at a brisk walk along the same path. It was George Perkins, crossing the yard without fear or shame as if he had business with his masters on the other side. Within moments, dozens of prisoners recognized him and cursed him roundly for his duplicity.

While Perkins disappeared through the gate, another familiar figure caught my eye at the far end of Division 2. It was a slender young woman in a white nurse's uniform whom I recognized even at a distance as Gwen. Like Perkins, she walked rather boldly across the yard, attracting a chorus of insults, particularly from the female prisoners. She never turned back, even when struck on the shoulder by a stone sharp enough to draw blood through her blouse. I pitied Gwen at that moment. But she had made her choice, even if she might add it later to the list of mistakes that she claimed had ruined her young life.

By the time Gwen reached the main gate, the insults were so impassioned that I expected the crowd to tear the next defector limb from limb. As it happened, Gwen was the last prisoner to desert us that night.

The bosses' idea had been a clever one: open the gates and lure out enough of the rats inside that only a few stubborn ones remained inside to be crushed. But the idea ultimately failed because the bosses' mentality remained so firmly rooted at the level of the rats they assumed us to be. Over the next two weeks, fewer than a half dozen prisoners made the trip past the barricades.

C
HAPTER
36

"Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted, the indifference of those who should have known better, the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most, that has made it possible for evil to triumph."
—Haile Selassie, former Emperor of Ethiopia

FRIDAY, JUNE 14

DAY 27

The jeep climbed the narrow road that followed the southern shore of the Jordanelle Reservoir before starting the descent through the Upper Provo Canyon toward Kamas. Barely more than a decade earlier, the tranquil shoreline had been rimmed with vacation homes, picnic grounds, and manmade beaches. On the shimmering water, twenty–somethings had windsurfed while young children learned to swim and teenagers raced each other on the backs of noisy jet skis.

Now the beaches were empty and only a few half–destroyed houses remained standing within a mile of the reservoir's southern shore. These were the sturdier ones, generally made of cinder block or stone or poured concrete, usually located at strategic points flanking the road where local militias had ambushed attacking Army units a decade before. In some places the remains of sandbag bunkers and barricades still stood out among the weeds and scrub oak. Elsewhere, flat concrete foundations dotted the barren landscape where wood–frame houses had burned to the ground or had been dismantled by Kamas recycling crews. The road through this wasteland was washed out in places by the spring runoff and marred by deep potholes.

"Why do the houses have so many holes in them?" Claire asked after she had passed yet another pockmarked wall, riddled with fist–sized apertures left by anti–tank shells and rocket–propelled grenades.

"Those are from gunfire," Martha replied. "When you were a baby people fought a war here."

"Who won?"

"The Army did."

"Isn't it over yet?" Claire asked.

"It’s been over for years," Martha replied. "Why?"

"Then where are all the people?"

"Most of them left or were sent far away."

"To camps?" Claire asked.

Martha hesitated before replying.

"Mostly," she said.

"Kids, too?"

"Some."

"Are the camps okay places to live in?"

"I haven't seen any place where they keep children, so I don't really know," Martha replied uneasily. "But, Claire, it's not a very good idea to talk about the camps. It's kind of unlucky–like walking under a ladder or breaking a mirror."

"My mom broke a mirror once and stayed in a bad mood for a week. She said it brought seven years of bad luck. Is it like that?"

"Sort of. Only sometimes it's longer. So what do you say we change the subject, just to be on the safe side, eh?"

The road straightened and a vista opened down a shallow canyon toward the Kamas Valley. To the north, Claire spotted the sprawling compound of the Kamas Corrective Labor Camp.

"Is that it?" she asked. This was her first visit over the hills to the Kamas Valley and she was eager to catch a glimpse of the camp.

"That's it. The town of Kamas is straight ahead," Martha answered, pointing to some commercial buildings and a few hundred houses clustered at the intersection of two state highways.

"Do you see the big stone house on the hill in the distance to our left?" Martha continued. "That's the administration building where Doug and the Warden have their offices. We'll be there in a few minutes."

But Claire could not take her eyes off the vast labor camp, with its watchtowers, walls and fences, parade grounds, and orange–clad multitudes toiling outdoors under the glare of the midday sun. As they came closer, she noticed that the camp was divided into five sections, three of which contained mostly one–story buildings of uniform size, while the other two held an assortment of buildings resembling garages or workshops. A few minutes later she caught sight of tents nestled among the hills around the camp. Not far from each encampment, soldiers watched the camp from behind mounds of bulldozed earth.

Martha turned off the state highway onto a dirt road that led over a hill beyond which sat the three–story white house Martha had pointed out from a distance. Claire could now see that it was part of a compound that included a central yard the size of a football field. Behind the stone house Claire saw a pair of two–story cinder block structures that resembled motels, while to the right of the house was a sort of barn whose vast front door was raised to reveal a pair of tilt–cab trucks undergoing repair. In front of the barn–like repair shop was a gravel parking lot filled with jeeps, vans, pick–ups, and canvas–canopied trucks, all painted in various combinations of black, gray, olive drab, and desert tan.