We paused at the tent to watch the badly wounded eased inside on their litters. “No light,” a soldier whispered. “No light.” The soldiers did not want to become illuminated targets. They had also not wanted to be caught in the middle during the afternoon ambush. I felt some disdain for them; they had refused Bob Flick when he barreled down to them during the shooting and pleaded for help, then for the loan of a gun.
I asked myself: Why hadn’t they helped us earlier? Apparently, in their elementary thinking, their orders to guard a disabled military airplane on a remote landing strip meant exactly that and nothing else. To exceed those orders, particularly when it involved leaving their posts and firing upon foreigners, would be inviting harsh discipline. Also, as they later said in their defense, how could they have sorted out the sides in those few minutes of confusion?
Their excuses left me unsatisfied. It seemed they at least could have fired a few bursts of automatic weapons into the air that might have prevented the gunmen from walking around and blasting heads and faces in cold blood.
Despite all my misgivings, the assortment of automatic weapons held by the soldiers created an air of security around the tent. I was not particularly happy to leave the soldiers, because we had no idea where the Temple gunmen had gone, nor what had transpired after we departed from Jonestown.
Just a few minutes after the knife attack on Congressman Ryan, Jim Jones had reflected on it with Charles Garry at the rear of the pavilion while Mark Lane escorted Ryan to the departing truck. Jones showed little remorse over the ugly incident. Had he, in fact, ordered the attack? If so, the outcome of the scuffle suggested that Sly either had been instructed to stop short of hurting Ryan or had disobeyed orders to kill him. Sly, a big and very strong man, easily could have cut Ryan ear to ear in the congressman’s momentary confusion, but instead he had uttered threats, giving Ryan and others time to take defensive action. Did Jones really stage the incident to get the congressman on the truck with the rest of us marked for death? Did he want the congressman out of the way during the next climactic hours in Jonestown?
“The goddamn fool,” Jones said. “Why did he come out here without security?”
Garry looked at the minister, shocked. “That would have been an affront to you,” the attorney said.
From Garry’s perspective at that moment, Sly’s attack had marred what was otherwise a very successful two days. Garry was no closer than he ever had been to seeing through Jones. “This is the act of an agent provocateur,” he told his client.
“No,” Jones said. “People were just angry.” Again, Jones was attributing the attack to some mystical collective will. This hardly jibed with Garry’s impressions—the people milling around the pavilion had appeared bewildered, not angered. They had remained disciplined, obedient. Given their conditioning, chances were remote that anyone would have initiated an independent attack on Ryan—and Jones’s subsequent treatment of Sly would tend to corroborate that.
Meantime, Marceline Jones came on the public address system and asked everyone to retire to their cottages and dormitories, to rest. Obediently, people dispersed toward their housing, not knowing what lay in store. Something in the wind—and Jones’s peculiar statements—heightened Garry’s apprehensions and caused him to turn to his rival, Lane, who had just returned from seeing off Ryan. “Let’s you and I go for a walk,” Garry said. The lawyers—the only nonmembers in the settlement—strolled toward the basketball court and cottages. On the way, Lane said, “I’ll tell you something I don’t want repeated.” He too had seen disturbing signs; he revealed that Gerry Parks had asked for his protection while collecting his belongings. When alone with Lane, Parks had said that if people had felt free to choose, many more would have joined the Ryan party. The defector said that everyone was working long hours, conditions were terrible, and Jones was a tyrant.
As the two lawyers talked, Jack Beam and Jim McElvane came directly to them, apparently to check out their reaction to the situation. “What do you think of this?” McElvane asked. Garry did not yet understand the gravity of the situation. “I think you’ve got a beautiful place,” he said. “But it seems to me there should be more open discussion so people can express opposition.”
“There’s a suggestion box,” said McElvane.
They were interrupted by another announcement over the loudspeakers : “Everyone report to the pavilion immediately.” People who were ordered to quarters just a few minutes earlier reemerged from buildings and streamed in droves toward the central structure. As Beam and McElvane brought the lawyers to the school building on orders from Jones, the group converged with this procession of rank-and-file members. The people who knew the attorneys smiled; some quipped, making light of the defections, “Yeah, we’re all defecting.”
In the school building, the lawyers found Jones seated on a bench, with Tim Carter and Harriet Tropp nearby. Flanked by their escorts, Lane and Garry stood before the minister. Things had changed; the counselors were being moved and ordered about, though in firmly polite fashion. The emperor had reascended his throne.
“All is lost,” he told the attorneys. “Every gun in this place is gone.” Jones indicated that some members—supposedly unprompted—had taken Temple guns and gone after the Ryan party. He also announced that three of those who had left with Ryan—Joe Wilson, Gerald Parks and Larry Layton—were not defectors after all. They had gone to kill. Even now, Jones manipulated the facts: security chief Joe Wilson had not left with Ryan but had boarded at the gates, a fact Jones somehow knew; and Gerald Parks’s negative comments to Lane had made it quite clear that he was truly a defector. Violating Lane’s confidence, Garry called Jones on one part of his lie; he revealed what Parks had said to Lane.
Jones shrugged off the new information and went on trying to convince the lawyers of Layton’s violent intentions. Again Jones spoke as though misguided loyalty and uncontrollable dismay had provoked his followers. It was his “intuition” that told him of the violence ahead: “When Larry hugged me, he said, ‘You’ll be proud of me.’ ”
By this point, hundreds of people had thronged to the pavilion. Just a few yards from the school building, they awaited further orders. They had nothing to do, no one to address or entertain them. This was a rare vacuum in such a highly structured community. Taking note of them, Garry asked Jones, “Shouldn’t someone say something to all those people?”
“Let them think,” said Jones.
Maria Katsaris entered the school and called to Jones, “I want to talk to you a second.” Jones went over to her for just a moment, then came back to the attorneys. He did not share her message with them; they were pawns now, not advisers.
“Charles, you and Mark will have to leave. People are angry with you. Your lives will not be safe. You have to go to East House.” The impassively expectant people in the pavilion did not appear upset with the lawyers for bringing Ryan; perhaps Jones was. Even now he had to make an excuse to send the attorneys away from his staging area. He did not wish to be inhibited by outsiders; he did not want them to witness his final sermon; he probably wanted to spare them.
Behaving queerly, Jones walked a dozen feet or so away and stooped over to pick up an empty cigarette package. Then he dropped it into the trash, as though litter control remained important.
A few minutes later, the attorneys arrived at East House as ordered. Their escort McElvane split off toward the basketball court. “Jim,” Garry called after him. “Let me know what they are gonna do.” Garry was disturbed.
“I will,” McElvane promised.
To their surprise, the lawyers found that Don Sly, of all people, had been dispatched to watch over them. With his cut hand bandaged, he sat on the steps to East House. It was a curious turn of events; the man whom Jones had agreed to turn over to the local police now was guarding the lawyers.
“What happened to you, Don? Flip out?” asked Garry, referring to the attack on Ryan.
“In all deference to you, Mr. Garry, I don’t
want to discuss it.”
Time passed. The lawyers saw about eight men file out of a nearby building lugging numerous guns and a couple of heavy ammunition boxes. Sly called to them as they headed toward the pavilion. “When do you want me to come up there?”
Garry and Lane looked at each other, petrified by the sight of guns and the dark mood. Outside, moments later, their fear became immediate at the approach of two shirtless gunmen named Johnson—Poncho from San Francisco, and another from Los Angeles, both known to Garry because they had attended the San Quentin Six trial. The pair halted at East House, rifles ready, then sent Sly to the pavilion.
“We’re gonna commit revolutionary suicide,” the gunmen announced.
Lane asked if there was not some alternative.
One Johnson replied, “We’ll die to expose this racist and fascist society.”
That “we” hung ambiguously in the air. Lane thought fast. “Well, Charles and I will write your story.”
That appealed to the gunmen; someone needed to stay behind to tell “the truth” about Jonestown. Either the men had not come to execute the two lawyers or had been dissuaded from doing so. Happily they embraced Garry and Lane.
In the background, Lane and Garry could hear Jones’s voice and sporadic yelling from the pavilion. There was talk of death; periodically, one woman’s voice rose above the rest. She was arguing against whatever Jim Jones wanted to do. Others were shouting her down. In this climate, the lawyers were not safe.
“How do we get out?” Lane asked the two gunmen.
“Go through the bush,” the gunmen said. Apparently it would be dangerous to walk out to the main road to Port Kaituma. The two Johnsons explained how the lawyers could work their way along the perimeter of the camp. Minutes later, Garry and Lane bade the two a final farewell then headed toward the jungle, running and panting. Over rough terrain, through gullies and brush, they went as fast as their stamina could take them. It was hundreds of yards up a hill toward the edge of the dense jungle. With his heavy briefcase, Garry struggled to keep up with the younger lawyer, who also had a lighter tote bag. They heard Jones’s voice cry, “Mother mother mother mother!” This was followed by what sounded to Garry like three shots. The lawyers did not even comment, they were running so hard. Garry was completely out of breath.
At approximately six o’clock in Georgetown, Sharon Amos—apparently unable or unwilling to make contact with the San Francisco temple over the radio—rushed frantically up the outside stairs of Lamaha Gardens on her way to the telephone inside. It was, she knew, the most critical message she would ever deliver. The White Night was on, this time for real. If Peoples Temple was not to be allowed to live in its own fashion, it would nevertheless choose its own way of dying. The time had come. It was 1:00 P.M. San Francisco time when Sandy Bradshaw answered the phone at the Geary Street temple. Amos told her to get out the code books.
“There’s been an incident,” Amos said. “Some people have gone to see Mrs. Frazier. Others will be going to see Mrs. Frazier.”
Bradshaw did not need to consult the code book to know that “Mrs. Frazier” meant death.
Amos continued: “Do what you can to even the score. I’m going out to find George.” “George” was the Temple name for Tim Stoen, the traitor of traitors.
The always intense Sharon Amos was almost beside herself. The choice of Bradshaw was not accidental: the former probation officer not only had bought several weapons, she also knew how to use them.
In San Francisco, Bradshaw staggered back to the radio room, looking as if she had seen a ghost. She told Jean Brown and Tom Adams what she had heard. There was no longer any doubt that the worst must have happened. Had the CIA or some other equally malevolent force finally achieved its goal of destroying the best man and the best movement they had ever known? Was there any hope of saving Jonestown? As bleak as Amos’s call had been, she had relayed no details or explanations, just word of an incident that warranted deaths in the settlement and revenge outside. The situation was still too foggy to be acted on immediately. They needed more information.
Earlier, Stephan Jones had been present in the Lamaha Gardens radio room when his father’s voice came over the airwaves, shouting, pleading, imploring. “Please, please, take care of everyone there.” Jones not only wanted Stoen and the enemies dead; he wanted every member in San Francisco and Georgetown—maybe two hundred or more people —to kill themselves. Stunned, Stephan asked Paula Adams and Debbie Touchette, the regular Lamaha radio operators, if Jones had demanded such things on the radio before. They nodded yes. “Did he call it off?” Stephan pressed. Again the answer was yes. “Then wait,” he ordered. “We’ll see what happens.” Stephan was stalling. Again, doubts and uncertainties swirled in his consciousness. Was this the real thing or more of his father’s tricks? Had Jones gone too far now to pull back? If so, could Stephan resist the pressure to follow his father over the edge? Could the nineteen-year-old afford to sit tight and hope for a way out? Hold on, he told himself. Keep hoping.
Upstairs, Sherwin Harris had just sat down to dinner with his daughter Liane and with Sharon’s two other children, Christa and Martin. Harris and his daughter were discussing how they would spend the following day together. When Sharon came upstairs in the middle of dinner, about six thirty, Harris noticed that she appeared very distracted. And he was surprised that his ex-wife readily agreed to his request to see Jonestown. His daughter Liane had been resisting the idea.
After Sharon Amos disappeared for a while, she came back again to tell Liane to take a call in another room. Harris had not heard the phone ring, so he presumed it must be a radio call. Liane followed her mother downstairs to the radio room, where Stephan and the others were standing around, still shaking from Jones’s final message.
“Liane, we may have to die,” Sharon said.
“Okay, fine,” Liane said, without hesitating. To Stephan, it appeared that Liane was putting up a dedicated front. Sharon told her to go back upstairs and send her father away from the house. Somehow composing herself, Liane returned to the dinner table and resumed her conversation with her father. It tapered off quickly. About 7:00 P.M., she announced that she was tired and excused herself to go to bed. Though this abrupt end to their reunion dinner seemed odd, Harris went downstairs to call for a cab back to the Pegasus.
Meanwhile, Stephan Jones became more desperate than ever for information on what had happened in Jonestown. He decided to go over to the Pegasus. First, he wanted to find out what Tim Jones and Johnny Cobb had discovered there; second, he simply needed to get out of that house. He was scared to the bottom of his soul.
Before leaving, he said to Sharon, “Don’t tell anyone in the house what’s going on.” To Lee Ingram he said privately, “Keep an eye on Sharon,” though Ingram did not have to be told. Stephan got into a rented car with Mike Touchette and Mark Cordell, ignoring Sherwin Harris, who was standing by the rain gutter waiting for his cab.
Harris was peeved that they had not offered him a ride to the hotel. Soon, however, his thoughts turned to pleasant things. He was excited that he would be able to spend the entire next day with Liane, comforted that Sharon had given permission for a Jonestown visit.
It was nearly eight o’clock and already dark as Stephan Jones pulled up to the Pegasus. Johnny Cobb and Tim Jones had been talking in a friendly fashion to the Concerned Relatives. As Stephan walked into the airy lobby, he spotted Tim Stoen, sitting on a bench outside the small bar. Seated next to him were Grace, and Steve Katsaris. Stoen looked up at the tall young man, and they greeted each other nervously. Stoen knew nothing about any trouble. Their conversation quickly heated up:
“Do you know what you’re doing?” Stephan asked him. “Do you know what could happen?”
“I want my son,” Stoen replied, thinking he was hearing the same old Temple warnings. “I don’t care what they tell you. I drive a Volkswagen. I don’t have much money. I don’t work for the CIA. I work hard.”
Ste
phan was insistent. “Do you know what could happen?” he repeated.
Stoen was equally firm. “I want my boy. I’ll do anything to get him. I want my son. I have a court order. If the congressman doesn’t get him, I’ll be out there in a few days with the GDF.”
“Why are you going to cause all those deaths?” Stephan demanded, incredulous that Stoen could be so stubborn that he would risk everything for one child.
“Do you mean he’ll kill everybody?” Stoen asked in a shocked voice. “He’s a madman.”
“I know that,” Stephan said, taking a chance.
“I didn’t know you felt that way,” said Stoen, amazed that Jones’s own son would make such an admission.
A tearful Bonnie Thielmann interrupted, telling Stephan she was worried about him and his mother. “I’m fine,” he replied, trying to brush her off. “I can’t stay. I gotta go.”
On his way out of the lobby, Stephan shouldered past journalist Gordon Lindsay, too, then joined the other basketball team members in their car.
While Stephan was at the Pegasus, the Guyana police drove up to the Lamaha Gardens house. They had heard—probably by radio message from the northwest—of a shooting involving Peoples Temple, so they wanted to check the Georgetown house. When the police drove up, Ingram left Sharon Amos alone and went out to talk to them.
The sight of the police panicked Amos. She immediately assumed that her hated ex-husband had called them, that Jim Jones’s dire prediction finally had come to pass: they were after her children. The time had come for her to carry out her part of the White Night.
Sharon went back upstairs with Liane and found her two other youngsters seated in the living room playing cards with Stephanie Jones, a nine-year-old girl. Christa, eleven, and Martin, eight—Sharon’s children by another father—were Georgetown fixtures, frequently seen trailing after their determined mother as she made her public relations rounds. Martin was the precocious boy who had resisted taking the punch during a suicide rehearsal.
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