Seductive Poison (18 page)

“Debbie, my little soldier,” he whispered, “the trip you are about to take is extremely important. It’s vital to the security of the church and you must be more cautious. Maria tells me you are often a little cavalier with your mockery, you kid around when things should be serious. I trust you, but you must be careful. This is a journey in which you can learn a great deal about other countries. Take advantage of the opportunity.”

I felt honored that Father was sending me and not Maria, but I was still worried. What else had Maria said to Father behind my back? Was he beginning to have second thoughts about me? I looked into his eyes.

“Yes, Father, I understand.”

Why was she attempting to poison Father’s feelings for me? I maintained a serious comportment as I shopped for cold-weather business clothes. Later at our Denny’s rendezvous Teresa informed me that we had had a high-level defection but couldn’t tell me who it was yet. At ten o’clock that night, Annie drove Teresa and me to the airport. Teresa’s hair had been permed again and tied with a colorful scarf around her head. I thought she looked Scandinavian. After being seated and handed a blanket and pillow, I wondered if we had to move the money again so soon because the defector knew the finances. Could it be Tim Stoen, the assistant district attorney, John-John’s legal father? Our last alarming defection had been
Grace Stoen, his wife and John-John’s mother. Had Tim followed her? I hadn’t seen him recently because he took the boy down to Guyana for safekeeping. He knew about the foreign bank accounts. I assumed that he had helped set them up.

But it could also be John. Since starting law school, he had been argumentative with Father, just like his sons. Although both John’s parents and his sister were in the church, Jim had mentally adopted him and he spent a great deal of time with Jim’s other sons. I had not seen him in any meetings for a week.

Or, I thought, it could be the bad press. Carolyn had said that the journalists’ reports could bring on a government investigation. Perhaps the FBI was trying to get at our assets. It would be a tragedy if the money we had safeguarded could not be used later to enhance the lives of the seniors and children in Jonestown. Carolyn was right. We couldn’t keep the money in racist America any longer. As Father said, journalists, like all capitalists threatened by socialist beliefs, would lie to silence the word of Light. He had prophesied that our beliefs and loyalty would be tested by the “prince of darkness.” He had said, “Journalists produce a perverted world consciousness because they are perverted themselves.” Capitalists would always speak evil of what they could not understand or profit from. I remembered reading almost the same argument in Marx’s
Communist Manifesto.

“They have always tried to quiet the voice of change … The government killed Martin Luther King, they silenced John Kennedy, and when Malcolm X spoke of integration he, too, was sacrificed. Very few are brave enough to stand up for justice … and fewer still, for socialism.”

For the past two years Jim had suggested that those who had defected were all in the FBI’s pockets and on their payroll. The Diversions Committee had been advised to model a revenge tactic after Synanon’s, to frighten traitors. Started in the late sixties by Charles Dederich, Synanon used harsh catharsis, self-denial, and physical coercion to force heroin addicts into abstinence. Jim admired their tactics. They, too, believed outsiders were no good, untrustworthy, and they had put a large rattlesnake in the mailbox of an adversarial attorney; when he reached inside it, he was bitten. Our diversion campaign was far less deadly, geared toward making the recipients miserable and helping them to question their faulty ways. Once these treasonous former members had been tracked
down, Teresa and I would then take a hike through Tilden Park. Armed with plastic bags and gloves, we would harvest enough virulent red and orange leaves of poison oak to saturate a threatening letter typed on our non-traceable typewriter …

We know what you are up to.

The one who cares the most prays no harm will come your way.

Only you can prevent it.

The victims would never know, when they opened the envelope and pulled out the letter, that their hands would carry the toxin all over them. Father told us that the traitors deserved to have their eyes and faces severely irritated and possibly damaged. They’d be forced to wonder how this had happened to them and would later understand that “God acts in strange ways to safeguard his chosen people,” as Father always said. They had been fairly warned. Or had they? I wondered.

I held the armrest tightly as our plane began its acceleration down the runway. I was always relieved when we were safely off the ground. I tucked the blanket under my thighs and around my legs and feet. I felt a chill rush over me as Teresa touched my hand.

“Maria seems a little jealous that you were chosen.” Then she laid her head on a pillow, rested it on my shoulder, and went to sleep.

I had no idea then, but it was Jim who was making Maria paranoid and ill. His constant harangues of our coming incarceration and demise had begun to veil Maria’s once vibrant spirit with a cloak of death. She, too, had become consumed with fears of betrayal. Father’s frequent threats to flee the country had taken their toll on the once lively, fun-loving, and energetic Maria. I imagined she could hardly wait to escape to the Promised Land. There she could rest, care for John-John, and live an easier life. I fantasized about the sleep we would all be able to get there. I had already painted a picture in my mind of napping next to Mark on a tall-legged bed in our own cottage near the lake Father had talked about.

The flight passed quickly with all those disturbing thoughts racing through my mind. Once in Panama City, we met with our attorney, signed more documents, then arranged with the banks to wire-transfer our funds to Switzerland once we contacted them from
Zurich. Our next stop was England. We dropped our belongings at an immaculate bed and breakfast and immediately headed to London’s Guildhall Central Library to begin research on the banking systems of socialist countries. Teresa was trying to determine whether Romania or Russia would provide us the most advantageous accounting privileges and be sympathetic to our needs for secrecy.

From London, we continued on separate planes, in case we were being followed. We met in France and went by rail to Switzerland. Our destination was an elegantly sparse, cobblestoned nunnery in Zurich. Here again we dressed to look older, the dark business suits, earrings, glasses, and wedding rings. We met with more stately gentlemen in several exquisitely furnished boardrooms, opening numbered accounts and requesting the wire transfers from our corporate accounts in Panama. Everyone seemed to be sworn to a code of silence.

It was a cold morning when I climbed out from under my luxurious down comforter at the nunnery. While I shivered and packed for my unaccompanied trip back to America, Teresa gave me my instructions on how to proceed to France, where to stay the night, and how to go on to Canada.

“U.S. Customs officials may be suspicious of your two trips to Panama and think you’re involved with a drug smuggling ring. It’s best and safest for you to take this indirect route home. If, once in France, you perceive that you’ve been followed, fly back to England. Act as though you’re off to visit the Blakeys in Northumberland. After all, they are your in-laws,” she smiled. “Otherwise, if all goes well, continue on to Montreal, stay there for three days, then take the bus to British Columbia and over the border to Washington state. Customs agents in Canada are less attentive and not as suspicious. Remember, your passport has you entering France and leaving France, with no record of our trip to Switzerland. That’s why we asked Swiss Customs not to stamp our passports. It is very important the U.S. agents don’t know about that. Your taking a bus from Canada to Seattle will reduce the likelihood of close scrutiny by U.S. Customs officials.”

I was impressed. She had obviously studied this very carefully. I wondered if perhaps that was what she did when she left on secret missions for days and weeks at a time. She was testing the waters.

She told me the emergency numbers to memorize in case of arrest
and the procedure to use when calling the numbers. With my assignments committed to memory and my heart racing with excitement, I awaited further instructions from Teresa as she reviewed her notes.

“Lucinda.” She had begun to call me by my code name when she felt protective of me.

“You must be very careful in the future. I have noticed that when you are troubled on an assignment, you talk in your sleep. Last night was the second time on this trip.” She then handed me thirty $100 bills to use in case I got in trouble. I placed them in my money belt. She advised me to travel carefully and be wary of friendly strangers. Yes, I thought, one must always beware of spies who pretend they’re your friends. Men had been trapped this way in war when they fell in love with flirting double agents. I hugged her good-bye and took a cab to the airport.

When I arrived at the Charles de Gaulle International Airport in Paris, I felt weightless. A soothing French female voice was making announcements over a loudspeaker. Feeling rebellious, I immediately went to a window and bought a pack of Gauloise cigarettes. I lit one; it was stong and pungent. I took a taxi to a pension for the night and arranged with my driver to fetch me the next morning for my return to the airport. I knew no one had followed us, as I had sat sideways and kept my eye on the rear window. There had been no headlights. I was getting pretty good at this counterespionage, I thought. Mark would have been impressed.

I threw my satchel on the bed, untied my money belt, and walked back down the hall to run a bath, another cigarette between my fingers. What fun, I thought. This could be such a great life if only I could get away. What if I just disappeared with the money and never returned to the Temple? But I knew I would be arrested, just as Jim had said. I wondered if anything was worth being reincarnated as an amoeba. How sad, I thought, that by being a member of Peoples Temple I had been abandoned by the government and labeled an enemy. If only I could talk to someone about my predicament and get advice. Perhaps there was a way to get away safely and keep me hidden from Father’s wrath. But who could I turn to? Papa, Tom, and Annalisa couldn’t be trusted, according to Jim. I thought of the frightening statement about devious plans I had signed and I knew that I would be arrested and imprisoned if I left now. And now that Mama was inside I couldn’t leave her.

The following morning, after one last drag of disobedience, I threw out the cigarettes and flew to Canada. In Montreal I lay low
for only two restless days, but kept Teresa’s words of admonishment stashed safely away. I would forever heed her warning: Sleep meant danger.

When I returned home, Father called me into his apartment. He sniffed the air.

“You smell like the inside of a Parisian café!” he laughed.

“Those Montreal nationals smoke Gauloises incessantly,” I explained.

“Ahh, and if that is all that drifted back with you we needn’t worry,” he smiled.

“I’m sure I wasn’t followed, Father. I took extra precautions.”

“One can never be too cautious.” He cleared his throat. “So, you have spent a great deal of time with Teresa over the last few months. And your mission was exceedingly important! But now it’s time for you to reacquaint yourself with the more immediate work here at home. You know that I trust you with my heart, but I have heard comments on your roaming allegiances. I realize that you’ve become very fond of Teresa, but let me remind you it is Carolyn and Maria whom I rely on. The longer one is away from my aura the easier it becomes to weaken. Teresa must travel a lot and always on her returns she must immerse herself in the work. Even the most principled disciples have been lured from the truth. Remember … Trotsky, in the end, betrayed Lenin.”

7
Bad Press

After my return, I caught myself often looking out the narrow window into the tenements of the city. All the excitement of my autonomy and anonymity had gradually diminished and my sense of accomplishment had evaporated. I thought about my last few weeks abroad and recognized that that part of my life was now over.

Father’s numbing speech about traitors and his warning that my alliance with Teresa was now frowned upon signaled that existence inside the Temple was changing, yet again. A palpable tension was growing. I had been right. Tim Stoen had defected after all, and this was, in fact, the reason Teresa and I had to leave the country and change the account information. Tim had helped set up the foreign accounts; he was a well-respected assistant district attorney and only last year Governor Brown had appointed him to serve on California’s advisory Council of Legal Services. Tim’s high-profile defection could shed an unwanted and distorted light upon us. Everyone in the church knew that traitors always lied in order to defend and console themselves after turning their backs on the truth. Father had preached endlessly on this subject. Poor Tim, I kept thinking. Now he will come back in his next life as a microorganism and no one will know how smart he really was. He will knowingly be imprisoned inside an amoeba, forever reminded of his betrayal of Father and socialism.

Father also raged and fumed over the reporter who had been hanging out at the Housing Authority meetings, twenty-seven-year-old Marshall Kilduff. Since Jim’s ascension to chairman of the
Housing Authority three months earlier, in February 1977, the press had become alarmingly interested in our leader and the Cause. Kilduff had even been brazen enough to ask Jim for an interview. Jim was not accustomed to being questioned by such forthright people. His disciples responded only when spoken to. It was disrespectful to question Father. Not only was this journalist a thorn in Father’s side but the
Chronicle
seemed to be encouraging Kilduff’s constant inquiries. When the competing newspaper, the
Examiner,
ran “The Story Behind the Story” about Jim and the Temple, Jim knew defectors would ooze from the capitalist woodwork and tell heinous lies about us. And if those lies were printed it would be devastating to the Cause—because unenlightened people would believe anything the press told them.