“Well, you can wire me the details when you get home,” Jeff said, and it was Slattery’s turn to write himself a note. “I’ll do some checking on my own, too.” If Slattery thought he could set up some sweetheart deal, maybe rig kickbacks for Cyclone Chemical, he could damn well think again.

He wasn’t fool enough to let on that he’d had anything like that in mind. “You go right ahead, sir. I think you’ll find out the firms I recommend are competitive in quality and in price.” He paused to pull out a pack of cigarettes, offer one to Jeff, and then stick one in his own mouth. Once they both had lights, he remarked, “Something else occurs to me.”

“What’s that?”

“You might want to site this, ah, facility away from the main camp and take prisoners to it. You’d be less likely to spook the spooks that way, if you know what I mean.” Slattery had a disarming grin.

He also had a point. Jeff scribbled some more on that sheet of foolscap. “Could be,” he said. It applied the same principle as telling Negroes they were going to another camp when they got into the trucks from which they would never get out. “We could move ’em right on through, just like a… factory.”

The word that first crossed his mind, that caused the pause, was slaughterhouse. He didn’t want to say that, any more than he wanted to talk about killing Negroes rather than reducing population. It made him think too openly about what this camp was for.

“You sure could.” C.B. Slattery fairly radiated enthusiasm. “It’d be a privilege for my firm to be affiliated with such a patriotic enterprise. Freedom!”

“Freedom!” Jeff echoed automatically. “You’ll be hearing from us. I expect some of those designers may, too, so get me that word quick as you can. Like I say, though, I’ll check out some other outfits in these parts along with ’em.”

“You know your business best.” No, Slattery wasn’t about to argue. No matter who built the places where the Negroes went in and didn’t come out, the chemical that made sure they didn’t come out would come from his company. He said, “Freedom!” one more time and hurried out of Pinkard’s office. By the way he moved, his next appointment was just as urgent and just as important as this one. It wasn’t likely to be, but treating it that way made him a good businessman.

Jeff got up and watched him leave the administrative center, then went back to his desk. He picked up the telephone and called Richmond. He wanted Ferdinand Koenig knowing what was going on every step of the way. The Attorney General heard him out-he did try to keep things short-and then said, “This all sounds pretty good. Only one thing bothers me a little.”

“What’s that?” Jeff asked. Whatever bothered Jake Featherston’s right-hand man was guaranteed to be dead on arrival.

“This whole business of building the, uh, fumigator-whatever the hell you want to call it-away from the camp. That means we’re using trucks again. I thought one of the big points of building the fumigator in the first place was getting away from the goddamn trucks.”

“Well, yes, sir,” Jeff said reluctantly. “Only problem I see with building it here is, the niggers won’t take long to figure out this is the end of the line if we do. We’ll have more trouble from ’em in that case. Camp’s been pretty quiet so far, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

“I understand that, but we’ve got to think about efficiency, too,” Koenig said. “If we can give your trucks back to the Army-minus your exhaust hookup, of course”-he laughed, which meant Pinkard had to do the same-“that’ll help the war effort a lot. We need all the transport we can get right now, what with the big push into Pennsylvania. And you’ve got a good solid perimeter around the camp, right? You’ve got guards who know what they’re doing, right?”

“Well, yes, sir,” Jeff repeated. He couldn’t very well say the camp didn’t have a solid perimeter, or that the guards didn’t know what the hell they were doing. If he said that, he wouldn’t stay camp commandant for another five minutes, and he wouldn’t deserve to, either.

“All right, then,” the Attorney General said. “Any trouble comes up, I reckon you’ll be able to handle it. A few bursts from the guards’ submachine guns should settle most troubles pretty damn quick. If they don’t, well, the machine guns in the towers outside the barbed wire sure as hell will.”

“Yes, sir,” Pinkard said one more time. Everything Ferd Koenig said was true. If the Negroes caused trouble, the guards ought to be able to smash it.

“Good.” Koenig sounded pleased. “You keep at it, Pinkard. I’m sure everything will work out fine. Freedom!”

“Freedom!” Jeff said, but he was talking to a dead line.

He hung up, swearing under his breath. Everything Koenig said was true, yeah, but what he said was only part of the story. Jeff remembered how things had been back at Camp Dependable in Louisiana when his guards were reducing population by taking niggers out to the swamps and shooting them. Not only had that put a strain on the white men, it had also made them stay on edge every minute of the day and night. The Negroes in the camp had known too well they had nothing to lose. If they tried to nail a guard, they’d get killed, sure. But if they didn’t, they’d get killed anyhow. So why not try to take somebody with you when you went?

Camp Determination wasn’t like that now. The blacks here believed this wasn’t the last stop. They were wrong, but the belief itself mattered. It mattered a lot. Because they still believed they had a future, they were much more docile than they would have been otherwise.

Building the fumigator here would ruin all that. They’d figure out what was what. How could they help it? Everybody knew Negroes weren’t as smart as white people, but they wouldn’t have to be geniuses to figure this out. And guards would have to stay on their toes every second from then on.

But now Jeff had his orders. He wished he’d never called Richmond. He should have just gone ahead and built the fumigator where he wanted it and then told Ferd Koenig what he’d done. The Attorney General would have gone along with it. The way things worked out, Jeff was stuck.

He swore again, louder this time, sat down to look at a map of Camp Determination, and then swore some more. Pretty plainly, he’d have to build two fumigators, one for men, the other for women and pickaninnies. Otherwise, the sexes would meet on the way to getting eliminated, and that would cause all kinds of trouble-to say nothing of making inmates’ attitudes even worse than they would be anyhow.

After another look at the map-and some more venting of his spleen-he decided how things would have to work. The fumigators could go at, or even next to, the present outer boundaries of the camp. That way, he could use the current perimeter to separate them from the areas where the Negroes lived. Maybe he could send people through on the pretext that they had to be deloused before going to a new camp. That would explain why they didn’t come back.

How long could he keep them from learning that only bodies left Camp Determination? Not forever, he feared. But he could buy at least some time that way. The longer he didn’t have to worry about uppity niggers, the better he liked it. And he would be following orders.

Irving Morrell got his first look at one of the new Confederate barrels just outside of Salem, Ohio. The town, east of Canton, called itself “Ohio’s City of Friends.” It had been founded by Quakers, and many still lived there. What was happening around Salem now had nothing to do with those peaceable people or their ideals.

A U.S. 105 firing over open sights had knocked out the barrel in question. The young lieutenant who gravely explained that to Morrell didn’t see anything funny about it. He didn’t associate it with Jake Featherston’s ranting tract of the same name. Morrell wondered whether to explain why he was laughing. In the end, he didn’t. Any joke you had to explain wasn’t funny.