A Slave's Choice: Torture or Death!

It was a bit ironic that my new next-door-neighbor turned out to be a FBI agent who
specialized in corporate crime. I really didn't have much faith in the FBI being able to helpme with my problems since the government in general had had very little success in an anti-trust suit they had against RAM. The people who were causing my problems were a power elite who literally were above the law. In fact I was becoming more and more convinced that some arm of the government was behind my problems. But, since I had no other hope, I thought I would talk to the agent and maybe use it as leverage.

One weekend while Anita was away visiting her father, I got the opportunity to talk with my new neighbor. I talked to him about my problem in generalities and he seemed interested, but he was more interested in the general business practices at IBM. Little came out of the conversation except an affirmation in my mind that he would be able to do little to help me.

The following Monday I decided to approach my boss to see what response I would get. I went into his office and got directly to the point.

“Hi Don. Do you have a moment to talk about something?”

“Come on in Russ,” he replied.

I took out a small pocket tape recorder and said, “Do you mind if I record this conversation because it is important?”

Don became extremely nervous and started tapping his pencil on the desk and bouncing his feet on the floor. “We can talk about anything you like, but you can't record it!”

I said fine and then continued. “My next door neighbor is a FBI agent, and if the harassment doesn't stop around here I'm going to talk to them. Now you can tell that to whomever you please, but I am not kidding.”

Don was excited and nervous and he didn't know what to say. Apparently “they” had not briefed him for handling such a situation. “Fine, I'll pass you message on,” he finally replied.

“Good.” I said. “Because I'm tired of living like this.”

“You know Russ, you should trust RAM. We would never participate in any nefarious scheme and besides, the FBI treats people pretty rough too.”

I left Don's office feeling at least Don was worried about my going to the FBI. I really had no intention of going to the FBI, but I was hoping the threat might bring some change.

The response to my FBI threat was swift and retaliatory as usual. That afternoon I was working alone in the laboratory when my second level manager, Gene Leski came in and started a conversation with me. After some idle chatter, Gene said, “Russ, a person could get killed working alone.” Then after a long pause he added, “working in the lab that is.” I took the comment to be a disguised threat on my life, but the way it was worded I could never prove it.

That evening I told Anita what had happened and I said, “He worded the threat in such a way that you could argue that it was a harmless comment, but if you had been there, the only way it could have been taken was as a threat.”

One thing the threat had not done was cause any great increase in my anxiety. I just was not worried about them killing me because I believed “they” did not need another martyr like Karen Silkwood on their hands.

The next day at work was fairly normal. There were no harassing phone calls or strange incidences. As I was about to leave work Don Slewowski grabbed me and said he had to talk to me about working in the lab. I said Gene already had spoken to me and another conversation on the topic wasn't necessary. But Don insisted.

“You know Russ, some of your actions are really dangerous. You could get seriously hurt or even killed if you keep it up.”

“I know, Gene already informed me.”

“Well, I'm just telling you for your own protection,” Don assured me with a threatening tone in his voice.

I left work feeling again that my life had been threatened, but it was done under the disguise of working alone in the laboratory. First, none of the threats ever mentioned my comments about going to the FBI and two RAM trained, smooth talking managers would not use words like “killed” in talking about a minor infraction of working in the laboratory alone. Finally, the tone of Don's voice was more threatening than advising, but as usual a person would sound crazy if he said RAM managers were making threats against your life. Given the situation, it would be hard not to take them as threats. This time, the comments did have the intended effect in that they created a great deal of anxiety and a sense of panic set in.