“Amen to that,” Linder replied before retreating across the aisle.
Later in the evening, after Kendall had gone to sleep, Linder considered his own situation. He would be discharged from the infirmary the next morning. Yet he had not summoned the courage to reveal to Kendall the truth of how they had met in Beirut.
If he failed to clear his conscience of what he had done to Roger and his family, not only would he carry a burden of guilt, but he might also miss a chance to heal his soul and do something useful with his remaining time on earth. As he contemplated this, he felt an unexpected surge of hope and resolved that, if he managed somehow to survive the camps, he would find Patricia Kendall and her daughter, ask their forgiveness and do everything in his power to atone for what he had done to them.
Linder sat by Kendall’s side throughout the evening, returning to his own bed only when the orderly came for his nightly lights-out inspection. He waited for Kendall to wake of his own accord, possibly from thirst or a bad dream or a fit of coughing, rather than disturb the lawyer’s rest. If the man did not wake during the night, Linder decided he would rouse Kendall before breakfast to offer his confession.
It was three o’clock in the morning when Kendall finally let out a low murmur, rolled onto his side to face Linder, and opened his eyes.
“Roger?” Linder greeted him softly so as not to wake the others.
“I’m here,” came the terse reply.
“I have something to tell you. You’re not going to like it.”
“If you’ve been waiting there all night to tell me, I don’t expect I will,” Kendall answered. “But go ahead.”
“When we first spoke,” Linder began, “you questioned whether I was Warren Linder and wanted to know if we had met in London. The answer is no; we met in Beirut. I came to you in disguise as Joe Tanner and I said I was from the Mormon Return Movement. You and I had lunch and then we went to your father-in-law’s apartment. And that’s where they grabbed us.”
Kendall remained silent and appeared not even to breathe. Yet, in that brief moment, Linder felt a burden fall from his shoulders that emboldened him to continue.
“I was the undercover officer sent by State Security to lure Philip back to the U.S. The operation failed and they arrested all of us instead.”
“But why?” Kendall asked in a hoarse whisper, his eyes wide. He let out a sharp, rasping cough before speaking again. “Philip had retired from the Movement. His war chest was almost gone, for God’s sake. He was a toothless old lion. Why did they have to send in the storm troopers? What could the regime have to gain from it?”
“I don’t know the whole of it,” Linder answered. “All I can say is that that they had Philip’s place wired from the start. They heard him expose the flaws in my cover story and offer to turn himself in if the DSS would just leave Patricia and you alone. My mistake was to break cover and agree to take Philip’s offer to my superiors. They thought it treasonous of me to make a deal with an insurgent and decided to step in and do things their way.”
“Treason? Merely because you offered to pass along Philip’s offer?” Kendall challenged, newly energized by Linder’s admissions.
“It’s more complicated than that,” Linder responded. “They needed my help to get Lebanese government clearance to fly us out, which involved my confessing to crimes I didn’t commit. When I refused, they threw the book at me and the situation spun out of control. That’s how I ended up here with you.”
“So the delay in flying us out of the country—that was your doing?” Kendall asked, laying a cold hand on Linder’s wrist.
“You could say that,” Linder answered, sensing that something significant lurked behind the question. “I imagine my refusal to be the fall guy set back their schedule by a day or two.”
Kendall remained silent for a long time before withdrawing his hand and speaking again.
“Did you know that Philip Eaton is dead?”
Linder’s throat tightened.
“I found out at trial,” he replied. “I’m terribly sorry.”
“My father-in-law had an adverse reaction to the gas they used to knock us out. He suffered a stroke soon afterward and never woke up.”
“Oh, my God,” Linder replied softly.
“They brought in a doctor to examine him but, instead of taking him to the American University Hospital, they waited to fly him back to the States before giving him proper treatment. By then, the damage was done. Philip was dead on arrival.”
Linder felt his own blood pressure rise and suppressed an urge to scream.
“But they had a world-class hospital right there in Beirut!” he exclaimed.
“Dennis said the Lebanese government wouldn’t let the Embassy repatriate any of us until they received an official account of what happened during our capture and the opportunity to interview everyone involved in the incident,” Roger went on. “Since the Embassy refused any interviews on diplomatic grounds, the flight clearance took longer than expected.”
“Then Philip never regained consciousness?” Linder inquired, curious to know whether Eaton’s stroke prevented the DSS from interrogating him.
Kendall shook his head.
“His secrets died with him,” the lawyer added. “But, of course, the people who held us didn’t want to believe that. Instead, they spent months trying to coerce Patricia and me into telling them where Philip kept the money the militias removed from the downtown banks. By God, they must have injected us with every known drug in the psychiatric pharmacopoeia. But it was a waste of time. Patricia and I had no idea where Philip kept the money. He never spoke of it.”
“And Patricia?” Linder asked in a quiet voice, affecting sympathy but not too much. “How did she come through it all? Did you see each other at all during your interrogation?”
He watched Kendall’s face closely for signs of suspicion but saw none.
“In Virginia they brought us together every week,” Kendall answered in an oddly detached tone. “I saw Patricia and Caroline for the last time at a transit camp in Utah before I was sent here.” A note of fatigue had crept back into his voice.
“Do you know where they were held?”
“At a labor camp outside Park City called Kamas. I wrote to Patricia for weeks afterward, using every address I could find. But all my letters were returned.”
Kendall’s half-closed eyes took on a distant look. “She probably thinks I’m dead by now,” he added in a barely audible voice.
Linder put a hand on Kendall’s shoulder to comfort him. Whatever sort of relationship Roger and Patricia may have had before their arrest, they would likely never see each other again. And Linder knew that was wrong, though his hand had been in it.
“Do you know anything else about the camp at Kamas? I mean, it’s not as grim as this one, is it?” Linder asked, aiming to strike an upbeat note.
“I don’t know,” Kendall replied weakly. “I rather doubt it, but then...”
Linder cast an expectant look at his companion and Kendall went on in a weary voice.
“Perhaps it’s only wishful thinking, but the reason I believe Patricia and Caroline may be spared harsh treatment is that the people in charge don’t seem to have given up on using them to recover Philip’s assets. You see, they coerced Patricia into signing some legal documents before we left the interrogation prison and they’ve hired a Beirut law firm to file a claim on her behalf to inherit any assets Philip held in the Lebanese banking system. Though Lebanon has strict bank secrecy laws, I suspect that the DSS has figured out which banks Philip dealt with. So they might use Patricia as a stalking horse to get their hands on whatever turns up.”
“Do you think Patricia would go along with that?” Linder questioned, not having foreseen the legal tactic.
“Not if she can help it,” Kendall replied. “But she has Caroline to consider. If it came to a choice between her daughter’s welfare and her inheritance, I can imagine how she would choose.”
�
�And you believe Philip had enough tucked away to make the Beirut lawsuit worth the government’s while?” Linder asked in a low voice after making sure no one was close enough to overhear.
“It depends,” Kendall explained. “If they’re looking after the government’s interests, they needn’t worry about Philip having enough money to revive the insurgency. But if their plan is to steal whatever he left behind for some secret DSS slush fund or to line their own pockets, it might well be worth pursuing.”
Linder found this far from reassuring, knowing the sheer force of malign attention that Bednarski, Denniston, and the DSS were capable of focusing on their exile targets to rob them of their wealth.
“The trouble is, Roger, if you’re right and the lawsuit comes up dry, or even if the DSS gets its hands on the money, then they would have no reason to continue giving Patricia and Caroline favorable treatment. Which means that nothing would stand between them and…”
Kendall finished the sentence for him. “A camp like this. I know.”
Both men fell silent, their eyes locked on each other in the hope that the other might come up with a more promising outcome.
“There must be a way to protect them,” Linder said at last. “But I’m completely at a loss. Let’s sleep on it and talk again in the morning.”
Kendall, looking haggard, nodded and closed his tired eyes. A moment later he awoke with a shudder.
“Just one more thing, Linder. In case I don’t make it out of this place and you do, will you promise me something?
“Of course,” Linder answered.
“Would you go to Utah, find Patricia and Caroline, and do what you can to help them?”
Linder swallowed hard.
“If I can help them, I will,” he answered soberly. “But, let’s face it, Roger. I’m under a life sentence. The odds of my getting out are...” He shook his head.
“Thank you,” Kendall replied, and promptly fell asleep.
* * *
On the morning of his fourth day in the infirmary, Linder awoke to the sound of prisoners conversing while they waited for the breakfast cart to arrive. Casting a glance toward Roger Kendall’s bed, Linder found it vacant. He ran over to it in a near panic and felt that the bedding was no longer warm.
“How long has he been gone?” he asked the prisoner in the next bed.
“He fell ill during the night and they took him to intensive care.”
Linder was still standing by Kendall’s empty bed when the breakfast cart arrived with a new orderly, a tall, awkward youth in his early twenties.
“Are you Roger Kendall?” the orderly asked.
“No,” Linder replied in an annoyed voice. “What are you talking about?” he asked, looking in all directions for the missing Kendall.
“That’s too bad, because if you’re not, I’ll have to take the tray back,” the orderly answered, allowing a moment for Linder to compose himself. “You don’t really want to waste good food now, do you?”
Across the aisle, Linder saw Scotty looking up at him expectantly.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Forget what I just said,” Linder replied a moment later. “Kendall will be back in a minute. I’ll hold the tray for him.”
“That’s more like it,” the young orderly replied with a knowing smile as he handed over the tray.
The instant the cart went past, Linder walked the tray across the aisle to Scotty and returned to his own bed to devour breakfast in time for roll call.
As he rose to leave, the old native put a hand on his arm to stop him.
“You are not like others here,” he told Linder. “Your spirit is not spirit of slave. I see your days here not long. Soon you become free again.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? That I’m a goner like Kendall?” Linder protested, alarmed by the prediction. “Well, you’re wrong. I’m just getting my second wind. Just watch.”
“Not goner. Free man,” Scotty answered with a serene expression. “I see you walk away when snow is deep.” The old man fished inside his jacket and tore out an object sewn into the lining. “But you will need help. Take this and remember Scotty.”
Without another word, the native scuttled back to his bed, leaving Linder to stuff the object into his pocket. Linder hurried out the door and arrived at the parade ground just in time for roll call.
* * *
As expected, Linder was assigned to his old work team in the timber-cutting unit, where Yost assigned him to a light-duty work crew with Sam Burt, Will Browning, and other former teammates. After three days in the heated infirmary, Linder had grown unaccustomed to the frigid outdoor temperatures and spent most of his first day shivering. From time to time, Yost came by to offer him hot coffee and an extra meal bar. He also noticed Yost take aside prisoners who appeared to resent Linder’s special treatment. One of those was a hollow-eyed Rhee, who had completed his sentence to the Point after a near-miraculous recovery and was reassigned to the logging unit.
During the final afternoon break, Linder reached into his pocket for his last piece of meal bar and felt the object that Scotty had given him that morning. Upon opening its cloth covering, he found a small plastic compass. Though cheap and mass-produced, it was liquid-filled for durability, had a luminous dial and was designed to slip onto a wristband for easy reference. Linder stuffed it back into his pocket and, for the first time since arriving at Camp N-320, gave serious thought to what it might take to mount a successful escape attempt.
S12
Are you prepared to die? Then you are also prepared to escape. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
EARLY FEBRUARY, CAMP N-320, YUKON
On the third day after his release from the infirmary, Linder took stock of himself. To his relief, his three days in the infirmary had permitted his body to recover sufficiently from the disciplinary unit to support a return to the timber-felling unit.
Now he felt better able to tolerate the cold, fatigue, hunger, and sleeplessness, all while keeping a clearer head and a relatively constructive attitude, something that had eluded him before. It was as if his metabolism had finally adapted itself to its environment. Even his senses seemed enhanced; not only those of sight and hearing, but also his taste and smell and that intuitive sense that prompted him to check a worn chainsaw blade before it broke or dodge a tree that crashed toward him from an unexpected direction.
More than that, Linder’s nightmares ceased entirely and his personality seemed to have undergone a gradual but perceptible shift. He felt more empathy for others and could read their emotional states at a glance. At times, he wondered if he might even be able to read their thoughts.
Perhaps, he thought, this was because, under Yost’s comparatively benevolent leadership, the men in the logging unit had grown close to each other. Their mutual trust, with the notable exception of Rhee, was possible because the unit was essentially free of Unionist sympathizers and covert collaborators. This, in turn, resulted from their close scrutiny of one another, as anyone who expressed approval of Unionism or sought to evade his fair share of work or harsh working conditions was shunned and would eventually seek transfer to a worksite where Unionist toadies were rewarded with less onerous work. And, conversely, this same close scrutiny enabled Linder to overcome the initial suspicions of teammates who had heard of his DSS past and to slowly gain their acceptance.
Buoyed by his newfound confidence and Yost’s support, Linder let down his stony façade and slowly opened up to others on his team. The first to gain his trust was his fellow passenger on the cross-country flight to Anchorage, Sam Burt, the Congressional staffer who had visited Alaska on various inspection tours before his arrest and had conducted his own quiet investigation into the camp system. Next, Linder befriended Will Browning, the Montana rancher who was one of his original bunkmates in Hut J-6 and who had been among the survey team rescued from the blizzard the week before.
After spending years as an undercover officer, avoiding attention and suppressing his innate human drive for self-expre
ssion, Linder found it liberating to open up to his workmates on every topic but one: his former line of work. Though every man on his team was aware he had been in the CIA and DSS, they did not press him to talk about it. For them, it was sufficient that Linder now performed his fair share of work, was willing to help when asked, rarely complained, and could be relied to resist any notion or utterance tainted by Unionism. And in winning his workmates’ trust, he slowly regained his self-respect.
But as one day passed into the next, Linder’s thoughts returned often to Patricia Eaton and her daughter. During his initial weeks in the Yukon, while he teetered on the edge of survival, thoughts of Patricia had receded from his mind. But now, having learned what had become of her and Caroline, Linder thought of them at a labor camp in some arid Utah wasteland and felt the shame of having helped to send them there. And soon after, he realized that, if he needed a new goal to guide what remained of his life, surely that goal had to be escape. Not to gain his own freedom, or even that of the team he might bring with him, but to atone for having robbed Patricia and Caroline of theirs. Whether or not Patricia chose to accept his help, he would move heaven and earth to offer it. And perhaps then he could be free.
Until now, like most prisoners at Camp N-320, Linder had considered escape impossible and had put the thought out of his mind. The isolation, the distance, the climate, his lack of resources, and the vastly superior resources of his captors, seemed insurmountable. But now, he dared to approach the challenge logically. If I could slip out, how might I do it? And if I did escape, how might I make my way across two thousand miles of wilderness to Utah? And then, if I managed to find Patricia and Caroline, what next? What could I do for them that would make my ordeal and the risk to Patricia and Caroline worthwhile?
At first, Linder had no answers to any of those questions. Before long, however, he had devised a few working hypotheses as to how he might escape the camp and how, once safely outside, he might make his way south. He shared a few of those ideas with Sam Burt, who confided to Linder that he, too, had felt a growing sense of urgency to escape. From that time, the two men met nearly every day to work on their plan. To avoid casual eavesdropping or the attention of possible rivals or informants, Linder drew upon his espionage tradecraft to plan their meetings at irregular hours and in a variety of places. They spoke while working, while marching to and from work, and while walking in the yard before or after meals. Between meetings, each prepared separately for the breakout.
Exile Hunter Page 25
