Forty Days at Kamas

by Preston Fleming

  "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….

  CHAPTER 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 revie
w 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.

  "Did any of you notice that today marks the thirtieth day of the revolt?" the Colonel asked. "What do you suppose they're doing to mark the occasion over in the other compound?"

  The remark elicited smiles but no laughter.

  "All right then," Majors continued, "Let's start around the table with the Military Department."

  Pete Murphy looked unwell. His hair was disheveled, his face unshaven, and the gray circles under his eyes added to the unhealthy pallor of his complexion. He didn’t even glance up from his notes as he spoke.

  "Over the past five days, the enemy has added two more battalion–strength infantry units to the forces outside the camp. Training exercises and maneuvers have become more frequent, with many exercises occurring at night. Intelligence indicates that he may have constructed a mockup of the camp nearby to train for an assault.

  "To date, we have not seen any evidence that the enemy has brought in the kind of armor that one would expect to be part of an all–out assault on a camp the size of Kamas. Once we see signs that it’s arrived, I predict an assault within twenty–four to forty–eight hours.

  "As I reported to you last week, our defensive preparations are complete and we continue to improve our training and readiness. But no one here should be under any illusions about the imbalance between the enemy's forces and our own. If they attack, our losses will be catastrophic."

  The moment he finished speaking, Pete Murphy raised his head and looked around the table with an expression of palpable relief. It seemed to me that nothing in his Army career had prepared him for a battle like the one he had been asked to fight.

  Majors turned now to Glenn Reineke, who offered a summary of what he had learned from the interrogations of Bernstein, Skinner, and Gaffney, leaving out any speculation about Majors’s possible disloyalty. Reineke also explained the reasons behind the policy of permitting disaffected prisoners to leave the camp through the deserters’ gates. As long as the stalemate continued, he declared, those who opted not to fight would be free to use the gates. But once fighting broke out, anyone who attempted to leave would be considered a deserter and dealt with accordingly.

  A moment of awkward silence followed.

  Then it was Dr. Schuster's turn to report on medical matters. To illustrate how few drugs or medical supplies were left on hand, Schuster pointed out that Glenn Reineke’s bodyguard was now near death from infection of the knife wounds he received while attempting to disarm Brian Gaffney. The knife blade, Schuster discovered, had been smeared with human feces to bring on sepsis. The faces around the table registered disgust but not surprise.

  Next in line was Jerry McIntyre, the Technical Department chief who ventured only rarely from his secret laboratory to attend commission meetings.

  "I must say, you technical people certainly do a good job of keeping the lid on your secrets," Majors told him. "What encouraging news do you bring us, Jerry?"

  McIntyre, a tall, gangling man with thick, horn–rimmed glasses, peered down at his notes.

  "Well, if you're looking for breakthroughs, Colonel, I expect I may disappoint you," McIntyre replied. "Lately we've had to scale back expectations considerably."

  "Perhaps then you could start with some of the things youhaveaccomplished…" Majors pressed.

  "At the moment, every project we've completed has already been passed along to the Military Department and the workshops. The gas masks, for instance, and the crossbows and the compound longbows. And some low–yield incendiary devices. But we’ve been rather stymied in the area of explosives. Given the shortage of raw materials–"

  "You mean to say you haven't come up with the anti–tank weapons we talked about?" Majors interrupted. "How about electronic warfare?"

  McIntyre shook his head.

  "We scoured the camp for electronics and microcircuitry the very first week of the revolt. Not much turned up."

  "So all the hype and rumor about secret weapons was nothing more than… hype and rumor?"

  Beads of sweat formed on McIntyre's upper lip.

  "Excuse me, Colonel, but you led us to believe that rumors were to be encouraged to keep up morale. If there's been a misunderstanding…"

  The news came as a crushing blow. We had all wanted desperately to believe the rumors. The techs were our best and brightest. Surely, we thought, they would come up with something ingenious to help even the odds.

  "No, there's no misunderstanding," Majors answered wearily. "Just try to wrap up whatever you’re working on by the end of the week. And be sure to destroy your paperwork."

  Majors continued around the table until all the Department heads had spoken but by now we were all on the edge of depression. Time was running out and we knew it.

  "So, now we come to the question of questions," Majors continued. "Do we fight or do we surrender? You all know the terms State Security has extended
to us. If they had offered us even the most minimal concessions I would have had little choice but to recommend them. But they always revert to the same old mantra: ‘First go back to work and then we’ll see…’

  Majors turned to Ralph Knopfler.

  "Ralph, I understand your people have done some opinion polling to track camp morale. Last week when you asked the prisoners if they wanted to fight or surrender, what did they tell you?"

  "Nine out of ten wanted to hold out till we're attacked," Knopfler reported. "They won't go back to work unless the bosses meet all our baseline demands and offer credible guarantees."

  "What sort of guarantees would they need?" Majors asked. "Would bringing in a member of the Party Central Committee be enough?"

  "We asked that in the last poll," Knopfler replied. "Bringing in a couple well–known Central Committee men might help if they supported our demands."

  Majors sat up and his eyes took on a look of renewed hope.

  "That's what I pushed for the last time I talked to Boscov," he said. "They're still noncommittal about it but I still think a visit from somebody like Sturgis or Cook could be the key."

  Knopfler and I exchanged puzzled looks. Nothing Majors had said so far seemed particularly damning. There was no sly maneuvering or heavy–handed pressure toward capitulation. Nor had Majors said anything disparaging about the prisoners who favored holding out to the end. He seemed to want nothing more than to build a reasonable consensus around the views of a majority of prisoners.

  For the next half–hour our discussion continued without bringing us any closer to a decision. I left the commission offices more confused than ever. I was desperate to talk to Reineke about finding a way to leave camp.

  On the way out, Pete Murphy took my arm and gestured for me to sit down with him.