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looked for you when we got to the barracks but I lost you in the dark."
    From his accent I surmised that he was a Texan.
    "I wish you'd found us when we were still on the road," I grumbled. "We could have used your help. That last couple hundred yards nearly killed me."
    "I would have pitched in," the Texan replied, still grinning, "except I was at the back of the line where the bread was. I scored five pieces and was fixing to give the extras to you. But I was so damned hungry, I couldn't keep from eating them all. And good thing I did, because if I'd still had them this morning, they would have gone straight into the hamper."
    "Well, I'm glad they did somebody some good," I groused.
    Will laughed at my sour disposition. Then he introduced us and asked where the man was from.
    "Galveston. Name's Jerry Lee," he replied. "How about you fellas?"
    "Pennsylvania. We shipped in from Susquehanna. Tell me, how do you know Reineke?"
    "I served in his unit during the Chinese War. He was battalion commander when the Chinks attacked us across the Ussuri River. If it hadn't been for the Major, the Chinks would have overrun our sector big time. Later on, I heard he stayed on all the way through the withdrawal to Magadan and the airlift back to Alaska. Man, he was a hell of a fighter! I couldn’t hardly believe it when I heard he deserted."
    "Hold on," Roesemann interrupted. "How do you know he deserted? From what I’ve been told, State Security arrested just about everybody who made it back from Magadan. I’ve met troops accused of desertion who swore that the DSS rolled up their entire unit the moment they stepped ashore in Anchorage. The desertion rap stinks, if you ask me."
    Jerry Lee shrugged sympathetically.
    "So maybe he didn't desert. All I can say is that when I was in Alaska just after the Armistice, some buddies of mine told me Reineke had tried to resign but the brass wouldn't let him go. A couple of days later somebody at field headquarters tipped him off that he was about to be arrested. So he got wise and hightailed it for the Yukon."
    Another voice spoke up from the row in front of us. It was a knowing voice with a Long Island accent.
    "I know Glenn Reineke," the voice said. "What he did may have been desertion under the law, but it had nothing to do with cowardice. Remember, Reineke escaped twice from this camp. No coward would ever do that, knowing what the warders do to people who get caught."
    "How about the guy who stopped the dog?" Roesemann asked. "Do you know him, too?"
    "He was Reineke's escape partner. A former Navy SEAL by the name of Toth. Hard–bitten as they come. My guess is he'll leave the isolator even stronger than when he went in."
    The speaker had a long, gaunt face that was deeply creased with leathery wrinkles. His doleful eyes and drooping eyelids gave him an almost funereal expression. It was an intelligent face, but not an honest one. I introduced myself and met Steve Bernstein, a forty–four–year–old pharmaceutical rep from Manhasset. This was his fourth year in the camps. After nearly a year at Green River, he had been transferred back to Kamas to work as a hospital orderly.
    When we learned that Bernstein had been in Kamas before, we peppered him with questions about camp conditions, work assignments, the guards and warders, and every aspect of camp life.
    At first, Will Roesemann abstained from the questioning. Instead he listened carefully and watched Bernstein with the skeptical demeanor of an attorney hearing trial testimony from a hostile witness. I assumed that Will had picked up the same whiff of dishonesty in Bernstein that I had detected. But after a few minutes he joined in to ask Bernstein what percentage of Kamas inmates consisted of drug dealers, armed robbers, and sex offenders, criminals of the kind who tyrannized the holding prisons and transit camps.
    Roesemann seemed pleased when Bernstein reported that the only non–political prisoners in the camp were white–collar