CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
About fifteen minutes later, Sam sat in a small cabin that was bare wood, beams and rafters, with a table and four chairs set in the center. Light came from three bulbs dangling from the peaked roof. The door opened and a pale Sean Donovan was led in, handcuffed, wearing a worn dungaree jumpsuit with the white letter P stenciled on each leg and on the chest. Two National Guard soldiers in white MP helmets with blue brassards on their shoulders flanked him, and as one uncuffed him, the other told Sam, “Sir, this prisoner is now in your custody. We’ll be outside waiting. When you’re through, you’ll knock on the door and we’ll retrieve him.”
Sam stood up. “No doubt you will be at the door, but Mr. Donovan and I won’t be here.”
The older MP said, “Sir …?”
“I’m going outside with the prisoner.” He stepped out and saw a picnic table in a grove of pine trees about fifty yards away. “That’s where we’ll be, in plain view.”
The younger MP protested, “Sir, this is highly irregular, and I can’t—”
Sam showed them his National Guard ID, thinking how useful that stupid piece of cardboard had turned out to be. “That’s where we’re going. And tell you what: If either of us makes a break for the fence, you have my permission to shoot us both.”
* * *
“Why the hell did you want to sit out here, Sam? Warmer back in the cabin.”
Sean looked awful. Heavy bags of exhaustion were underneath the record clerk’s eyes, and one cheek was puffy with a bruise. His red hair was a greasy mess. Though he had been gone only a few days, it looked like he had lost twenty pounds.
“I’m sure it’s warmer back there, Sean,” Sam said, sitting at the picnic table. “I’m also sure it’s bugged with microphones and wire recorders. I don’t want our conversation to be overheard.”
Sean shook his head. “It’s real good to see you, Sam, but don’t screw with me. You’re not here to get me out, are you?”
“I wish I was. I’ll see what I can do, but you know how it is.”
“Ha. Yeah, well, thanks. It’s a fed beef they’ve got me here for, and when it comes to that, there’s not much anybody can do. Even your cop coworkers.”
“So what’s the charge?”
Sean gave a short, nasty laugh. “You want the official or the unofficial charge?”
“Both.”
The air was cool and smelled of pine. Sam had a quick twinge of nostalgia, remembering camping out in the White Mountains, he and Tony in the same Boy Scout troop, rivals but not yet enemies. Where in hell had it all gone wrong?
“Official charge is that I released classified information to a third party without the government’s permission.”
“What the hell kind of classified information is that?”
Sean looked sheepish. “My wife’s brother is a stringer for the newspaper up in Dover. I heard the FBI was staying at the Rockingham Hotel, and I told him. Big fucking mistake. Here I am, looking at a year cutting trees in a labor camp.”
“That wasn’t too bright.”
“Shit, I know that, but to think LaCouture’s name and hotel room number was a big damn secret … it must be, because that’s what they’re hanging me out there for.”
“And the unofficial charge?”
“You got any smokes?”
“No, I don’t. Didn’t know you smoked.”
Sean folded his arms tight against his chest, as if trying to stay warm. “I don’t. But cigarettes are the unofficial currency around this joint. Be nice to buy a little protection until I get assigned to a boxcar.”
“You’ll get some before I leave.”
“Thanks. Anyway, the unofficial charge. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Where was that?”
“My desk, if you can believe that. Look, remember I told you earlier the FBI guy and his goose-stepping buddy were snooping through personnel files?”
“I do.”
“Okay, they came back, and that time looking for arrest files. With the summit coming up, makes sense, huh? There was a list of people they wanted—and guess who was on the list?”
“Tony?”
“Bingo.” Sean sighed. “So you think I was dumb enough to ask the FBI and the Gestapo why they’re requesting your brother’s arrest file? The hell I was. And his file is a special one, since it ended with him going to the labor camp. So I was a good little boy and got the records they wanted, and they told me to leave them alone, which I did. Except …” Sean paused, looked to where the two MPs were standing at attention, watching. He lowered his voice. “Except I left a file on my desk. One that was on the list. Shit, I suppose I should have waited for them to come back. But I figured if I brought the file over, that would get them out of my hair that much quicker. So I hopped on over, and that’s when I got my crippled ass in a sling. They were both pawing through this file, and I heard what LaCouture said to the Kraut. Then LaCouture looked up and saw me standing there, and that was that.”
Sam thought back. He said, “That’s when you told me you needed to see me. The day before the summit was announced. Because LaCouture and Groebke were looking at Tony’s file.”
“Yeah.” Sean looked tired, shrunken.
“And what did LaCouture say to Groebke? What did you hear?”
“I’ll tell you, but Christ, it doesn’t make sense … something like that to get me in a labor camp.”
“Sean, what did he say?”
He shrugged. “The FBI guy said something like ‘Right from the start, he’s our man.’ ”
“ ‘Right from the start, he’s our man’? That’s what he said? What in hell does that mean?” Sam asked.
Sean said, “If I knew, do you think I would be here?”
* * *
They talked for a few minutes more, with Sam trying to jiggle something, anything from Sean’s memory of what he’d overheard. But the records clerk kept insisting the same thing: Right from the start, he’s our man. Sam looked at the MPs, ready to take Sean back. And if ordered, ready, no doubt, to take Sam prisoner as well.
He asked, “How’s it going here? How are you treated?”
Sean had one dirty hand on top of the other on the picnic table. “There’s been stories, you know. In Life and The Saturday Evening Post. And movies. I Was a Fugitive from a Labor Camp. But that’s all bullshit. Nothing like the real deal, my friend.”
Sam was silent.
“The real deal is, you get picked up and then tuned up slapped around, that kind of shit. Driven out here, dumped in a compound. Lined up, names checked, and first lesson you get, some of the older prisoners, they’re on the other side of the fence. They whisper to you, ‘Hey, toss over your watches, your extra shoes, food packages,’ that sort of thing. The guards will confiscate everything you’ve got. So some of the guys—hell, some are just kids—they toss stuff over just like that. You know what happens next.”
“They never see their things again.”
“Of course. And then you get shaved, deloused, showered, and given these lovely clothes. Another tune-up here and there, and you meet your bunkmates. Oh, really trustworthy fellows. What wasn’t taken at the fence is stolen during the night. Off to work the next morning … chopping wood, making furniture, waiting for your billet for a train out west … oh yeah, you learn a lot. Food is rotten, the bunks have fleas, and it’s every man for himself.”
Off in the distance, a burst of gunfire followed by another. Sean winced. Sam said, “What the hell was that?”
“Officially, weapons practice. Unofficially, guys decide that being here in a transit camp is their best chance to get out before being sent out west. Most of ’em have relatives in easy driving distance. So you get the occasional breakout attempt, the occasional shot-while-trying-to-escape. All unofficial, of course.”
“Yeah.”
Tears welled up in the record clerk’s eyes. “Other thing you learn, Sam, is what kind of coward you are. All the talk of being brave and not knuckling under our new government order, it’s all bullshit. You get dumped here, pretty soon all you care about is a good sandwich for lunch, hot water for a shower, and being able to sleep without getting beaten up. Stuff like freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, that’s all crap. Just keeping your own ass well fed, warm, and safe. That’s all you care about.”
The wind shifted, and instead of hearing gunfire, Sam heard a man’s scream. It seemed to go on and on and then gurgle off. Sean looked at him and said, “Bad, I know, but at least it’s not as bad as the other camps.”
“What other camps?”
“Shit, I think I’ve said too much already.”
“Come on, Sean. What do you mean? What other camps?”
“Word is, there are other camps out there. Not officially part of the system. Highly restricted. Here, at least, and the regular labor camps, you get in, you’re serving a sentence. These other camps, they work you to death.”
“Where are they?”
“Mostly in the South, from what I hear, but Jesus, the rumors are something else. If you step out of line, just for one second, you’re shot on the spot.”
“Who’s in these camps?”
“Who the hell knows? Not regular political prisoners, that’s for sure. Word is, there are special trains that take the prisoners to these camps.”
“What the hell do you mean, special trains?”
“Sealed. With markings painted on the side, so they get priority through all stations and sidings.”
That damnable memory of when he was a patrolman, hearing that train roar through with no identifying marks save the yellow stripes painted on the side, hearing the screams and moans from within …
“Another thing, Sam. The prisoners in those special trains … they’re tattooed. Numbers on their wrists. Can you believe that? Tattooed, like fucking cattle.”