IBO - Brian R. Lundin (100 books to read in a lifetime .txt) 📗

“What are they charged with?”
“Some of these guys are rapist, thieves and murderers, you name it, and they’ve done it.”
As they continued walking down the corridor, several inmates started screaming, spitting and masturbating at the female Marine who ignored them. Chris stopped at one of the cells and looked through the bars. It was a small room, maybe four feet wide and six feet deep with a concrete floor; there was no toilet, no sink, no lights and no windows, no nothing. The room was stuffy and dark. The room emitted an odor of an unwashed body, filth and sweat. An overflowing bucket was on one side of the room. A young black man was laying in a fetal position on what appeared to be a steel slat built into the wall and was covered with a straw mattress with his face to the wall, robust looking cockroaches were scrambling around the floor and walls and a small mice was sniffing at his toes.
“What did he do?” Chris asked disgustedly.
“He was fool enough to attack one of my Marines with a stick he found in the woods during their run, he blindsided the Marine put one of his eyes out, but my Marines are combat veterans and they are experts in the hand to hand fighting. Even with one eye out, he subdued the coward and broke both of his arms. The United States Marshals are coming to pick him up,” the colonel said proudly.
“What about the others,” Chris asked.
“They have all committed some serious violation either here or at one of the other camps. Most of them are awaiting transport to a federal institution to stand trial.”
As they continued to walk, there was a loud wailing coming from a cell. A tall, burley Hispanic with greasy air was crying. He sat on a thin mattress on an iron bed. A dirty bed sheet was on the floor.
“What’s wrong with him?” Chris asked.
“He’s new, he just arrived yesterday,” the female marine said, “probably a little scared.”
“On the street and in the other camps they raised hell, now they are in hell,” the lieutenant stated.
Suddenly, a metal cup came through the metal bars of one the cells, barely missing the colonel. Lieutenant Riley quickly closed the steel door of the cell. Chris walked over to cup and looked in.
“Get a shot of this,” Chris said to William.
The cup contained a milky white substance that looked like tooth paste.
“What is that?” Chris asked the colonel.
“We call that a “cocktail,” the female Marine replied.
“These lowlifes know they don’t have nothing to lose so they are constantly trying to abuse the guards. The cocktails are made from feces, urine, vomit, sperm and blood, which they collect in their meal cups. They have attacked our guards with broken toilet parts, utensils and anything else they can get their hands on. Just last week a prisoner complained of feeling ill and when three Marines were taking him to sickbay he attacked them. He head-butted one, spat on the other and seriously scratched the other as he attempted to gouge his eyes out, but my Marines prevailed and he was seriously injured. I believe they are trying to unnerve my Marines with these acts of depravity, but our guys are tough they can take anything these lowlife’s dishes out,” the lieutenant said proudly.
“What will happen to the guy who threw the cocktail?” Chris asked.
“He won’t get anything to eat or drink for a few days, but no matter, he’s scheduled to be transported out day after tomorrow, to stand trial for assaulting one of my marines,” the colonel said.
“What do they do all day?” Chris asked the corporal.
“The Officer of the Day will wake them, or rack ‘em up at five. Breakfast is served at six-eggs, toast, jam and coffee. They are allowed one shower a week and everyday they have one hour of exercise.
“Do they exercise together?” Chris asked.
“No sir, they exercise alone,” Corporal Sanders replied. They spent 23 hours of the day isolated in their cells. Some sleep away the day others do exercises in their cells.
“Interesting you has a female in there with those guys,” Chris said.
“She is not a female sir, she is a Marine,” the lieutenant said defiantly.
“We rotate the officers every week to avoid burn-out, as you can tell it is a very stressful environment to work,” the colonel said.
They left the building and drove passed a small tin building with a PX sign on the manicured lawn. Another sign posted on a Quonset hut read “LATRINE AND SHOWERS.”
Chris looked in and William begins filming. There were fifteen dirty toilet stools on one wall and another fifteen on the other wall facing each other, he estimated the distance between the stools were maybe three feet. In another room was a large shower that could shower thirty men at a time. They stopped in front of a large Quonset hut with a sign posted on the lawn that read “MESS HALL.” As they entered the building in a booming voice, the lieutenant yelled “ATTENTION.” Immediately the recruits, who were seated at long stone tables in stone chairs eating, jumped up and stood rigidly behind their seats.
“AT EASE,” the colonel yelled and the recruits took their seats. There was an eerie silence and Chris noticed one of the recruits hold up a fork.
“Man, it is quiet in here,” Chris said.
“We use the silence system, no talking or bull shitting, they use hand signals. The recruit you see with the raised spoon, that a signal that he is finished with his meal, he will stand up and go stand on a black line at the side of the galley. After chow they will all line up on that line and be taken to their next assignment, it is a control factor. You must remember Chris, these are not good guys, theses are not the young people who got caught up in the new law, these are people who have shown an infinite capacity for evil and violence, they have evil and violence in their heart and our job is to control that evil with discipline and knowledge. They know that any disobedience will not be tolerated and that’s what controls that evil. Discipline is the key, we don’t have any training or educational programs here, there are no televisions, no mail and no visitor, discipline is the key to our success,” the colonel said.
Their last stop was a green building with a sign on the lawn that read “INFIRMARY.”
The inside of the infirmary consisted of a few small examination rooms, which were evenly placed down the hall from what looked like a nursing station that was completely enclosed in protective Plexiglas, but there were no nurses. The environment was sparkling clean and neat. The place reminded Chris of the emergency room cubicles he had visited so often when he was a young boy.
“Well, it has been interesting, thank you Colonel Ellis,” Chris said.
“We will lead you back to the Administration building and the lieutenant will escort you back to the entrance.”
As they were leaving Chris shaking his head said to none in particular, “That cell holding the young man is not fit for animals. Rats and roaches everywhere, no toilet or plumbing facilities and I’ll bet its cold as hell in the winter and stifling in the summer.”


After leaving the camp, Walsh drove Chris and William to the airport in Spokane, Washington. On their flight back to New York, Chris felt a shill, uneasiness that he could not quite put his finger on, but he suddenly felt afraid. He ordered another vodka and orange juice and awakens William.
“You know something is wrong here, I don’t know what it is, but something is not right,” he said with a worried look.
“That Disciplinary Unit is one step above the camps the Nazi’s used during the war and I cannot get that kid out of my mind in that stinking, dirty cell with the cockroaches all around. The smell alone was enough to kill you, I’ve got to find out more about those camps, I wonder how many there are and where are they located?” He asked absent-mindedly.
Chris made a mental note to contact someone about the conditions.

Chapter 53

Fishing was President Tolland passion, some presidents relaxed by playing golf, some by playing tennis, but for Tolland it was fishing. Tolland was considered by some as an authority on fresh water fishing, especially catfish, crappies and bluegills, which were called bream in the southern states, and he had written numerous articles on his techniques for catching these fish in outdoor and fishing magazines. Tolland two daughters, Jeannie, a twenty-one year old pre-law student at Princeton, and Carla, a twenty-two year old pre-med student at the same school was his main fishing buddies. From the time, they were little girls, they had accompanied him on fishing trips, his wife Ruth did not care too much for fishing but she loved eating catfish, so she was the designated cook and fish cleaner. The president, his two daughters, and his four-man Secret Service team landed at Norfolk, Virginia Naval Base on the presidential helicopter. A waiting SUV took the presidential party to his log cabin, which was located near his favorite fishing hole; a secluded three hundred-acre river nestled in the Dismal Swamps. The log cabin had been in his family for years and was their vacation home. The Secret Service had made some security modifications to the cabin but it was the same as it had always been and there were many happy memories for the president. As the presidential party lead by two Secret Service cars and trailed by another they descended the winding trail towards the cabin, President Tolland could sense the quietness of the place that lifting the burdens of his office and he began to relax. The river was hidden in a forested hollow, a placid home for crappies, blue gills and catfish. The trail came to a flight of wooden stairs. Two agents went inside the cabin, turned on the lights and in a few minutes the president and his daughters entered. A wooden veranda wrapped around the cabin from the back to the front. There was a large front room with a wood-burning fireplace built into one wall.

There was a medium size kitchen with rough-hewn table and chairs. There was an old wood-burning stove and a double bunk bed, holdovers from an earlier time. The cabin had a rustic smell that reminded the president of family vacations with his father, mother and brother Stephen. The boys and their father would fish, campout and rough it. At either ends of the cabin were sleeping lofts accessible only by ladders, the kind of place every boy liked to turn into a fort or a hideout.
After changing clothes, they headed to the river. The river was not heavily fished because most of the angler who came