Chapter Three: Painting the Prison, Sleeping on the Table, and Watching It All Unravel

My Escape

PROLOGUE: PAINT, POWER AND BEING FORGOTTEN

Having completed my initial indoctrination (Chapter Two), a master class in being gaslighted—and deciding, not yet, to throw away everything I had known (mostly because I had nothing else) I continued to “enjoy” being ignored.
And having time to think.

As the Berthing Building I/C (In-Charge), running my own crew of one.

Miscavige had apparently left the base again. I was mostly forgotten and I was careful to keep it that way for as long as I could.

But every day that passed was a reminder of just how nuts things were at the Int/Gold Base and how much of it, if not all of it, was driven, created, and caused by David Miscavige.

And every day, I felt more rebellious.

---

THE BERTHING BUILDINGS AND PROOF OF DAVE’S MICROMANAGEMENT OF SCIENTOLOGY

My deep dive into the Berthing Projects reconfirmed everything all over again.

Like Building 50, the “Berthing Buildings” were new construction from the ground up built, it seemed, entirely by trial and error. Some of the buildings were constructed differently than others. Some used a special, unproven concrete-styrofoam hybrid for the exterior walls.

In all of them, the ceiling height was so low there was no room for floor plumbing. Why?
Because Miscavige ordered that the height of the buildings not exceed a specific maximum, to reduce the budget.

On the second and third floors, the wood decking was so bouncy the bathroom tile cracked with every step and the ceilings below cracked too. Why?
Because Dave ordered 16-inch joist spacing instead of the standard 12. Another brilliant cost-saving measure.

On the first floors, the piping laid beneath the concrete slabs didn’t match the floor plans above. Toilets, showers, everything was misaligned. Why?
Dave didn’t like the original bathroom layout and ordered a redesign. No one had the guts to tell him no.

With no space in the ceilings for plumbing or ventilation, we were left with only one option:
Bust up the slabs.

David had clearly proven his engineering genius. And, just like with Building 50, that he was the mastermind behind the overspends and the never-ending projects.

You see, I’d obtained binders of “COB Notes and Orders” from walk-throughs and transcripts of his rants, recorded by Lou. These were heavy, multi-inch-thick binders I was told were “the Bible” for berthing. Any suggestion I made, repairs, changes, fixes had to comply with what was in them or wouldn’t even be considered.

Every note explained the condition of the buildings, buildings that, like Building 50, had been run into the ground by Miscavige.

The other thing those binders confirmed was Dave’s iron-fisted micromanagement. Down to the doorknobs, tile types, even ceiling heights, some under the guise of “budget cuts”, the ecclesiastical leader, Chairman of the Board of the Religious Technology Center, decided everything.

And that was the rule of law.

---

ASSERTING CONTROL WITH COLOR

More and more, I just wanted to be in control again. To think for myself! I started to see what was really getting to me. Control of how I did things, not the right way, but his way. Control of my thoughts. Control of my emotions. Control of my schedule. Control of when and where I was. Everything was controlled. I had no control.

It wasn’t so much about rebellion as it was about wanting freedom and control.

Frustrated by the fact I could neither undo nor redo anything that had been done or needed to be redone, I made do with what I had. And what I had was enough to make a bold statement that I was in control, even though my hands were totally tied.

I rounded up every container of paint I could find on the berthing site. All elastomeric paint, by the way, meant to cover the cracks in the stucco.

All the buildings were designed to be white, with some tan and grey details, and the famously blue roofs used throughout the base.

I decided to paint each section of the berthing building most visible from Dave’s COB Office and wing of offices in Building 50, just across Highway 79, in different colors. I actually thought it looked better. It broke up the otherwise massive white walls and made the place look just a little less prison-like.

And so I painted. I was warned, questioned, and even threatened by a couple of people who noticed that I was not following the Bible. I was sinning! But no one stopped me. I’m sure they figured I’d be toasted for it soon enough and staying out of it kept them out of the line of fire.

I didn’t care what anyone else thought. Not even Dave. As far as the paint went, I was in control now. And I was doing it right in his face.

The truth is, this was busy work. The buildings were far from ready to paint, and it was the least important thing I could have done.

But I certainly wasn’t being thrown money to get anything else done.

---

Dave’s Unwelcome Return to the Base

One sunny afternoon, I had nearly finished painting the entire side of the berthing building. I came down off the ladder, turned around, and looked up at Building 50.

There he was. Dave, Lou, and Shelly, standing on the balcony, looking down at me and my art. I could not read their reaction and didn’t stress over it.

But I dreaded his return. But knew it was coming.
And I knew he’d visit me soon too.

Within the hour, Dave’s black Honda Accord pulled up to the berthing site, with him, Shelly, and Lou inside. Camels lit, designer water in hand, they parked and called for me.

Dave offered me a cigarette. I declined even though I wanted one. Needed one, honestly. But I just wanted to exert a little control.

Dave, as if he knew that, insisted. He angrily lit it for me the second I accepted it.

“Smoke it!!” he snapped, when I didn’t take a drag right away.

---

Clean Slate and Erasure

Standing there at berthing, having our smokes, Dave now attempted to erase my existence in Clearwater the place I’d been promoted from, or at least hailed from at the time, to get Building 50 done.

I won’t belabor it, but when it comes to the ever-important word “responsibility” in the Sea Org, from the late 1980s to 2000, I was the Captain at Flag. I owned it. I ran it. And I’d made real inroads with the City of Clearwater.

For years, when Dave came to Clearwater, he was a guest. A friend. That was understood, though unstated.

But like he did with everything else, he eventually tore that away from me too and took control of it for himself.

I mention this not for personal glory, but to put what Dave said next into context.

As I took another drag from the Camel he so generously forced on me, Dave turned to Lou and Shelly.

“Lou, Shelly! How many people in Clearwater have mentioned Tom or asked about him since we sent him here?”

Shelly began to answer, but he cut her off.

“How many people from the City of Clearwater even noticed he was gone?”

Before Lou could respond, Dave said, louder, and more certain this time:

“No one! Not a fucking person.”

Shelly and Lou nodded in agreement. In compliance.

Dave rattled off names like Pam Akin, the City Attorney, and Bob Keller, the City Manager, people I had personally befriended. I’d even introduced them to Dave and arranged for him to meet with them privately at Pam’s house when the Lisa McPherson case first blew up.

He was grateful for the connection but outraged that it came through me and not through Marty, Mike, or OSA. There was a deep, simmering resentment behind it. And like everything else, Dave took it over. I was no longer permitted to speak to them.

So no, I wasn’t surprised to hear all this now, standing there, watching him rant and continue his erasure of me. I was now just the “Berthing In-Charge” at his prison camp.

It did make me wonder, though: had I been sent to complete Building 50 because he thought I’d get it done?

Or because I was becoming a threat to his vanity in Clearwater?

I had expanded Flag. I had built real alliances with the City. I wasn’t just effective, I was autonomous. And for Dave, that was unacceptable.

He had to maintain control.
He had to be THE MAN.

Dave threw his still-lit cigarette onto the ground in front of me and ordered me to stamp it out. Then he got back into the car, girls in tow, and started to drive off.

But the car stopped again.

Lou came out and ran over to me.

“By the way,” she said, “COB wants to know who decided to paint the berthing buildings across from Building 50 like that. They’re not per the approved design.”

I replied:
“There’s only so much I can do here. I had some paint, thought it looked better breaking up all the white, and I went for it. My idea. I did it myself. No one else was involved.”

I knew Dave would want someone to shoot for it. I wasn’t going to let it be anyone else. And I was already about as shot as a rusted-out Ford in a junkyard.

They left.

---

Miscavige Clarifies Why He’s Building Berthing for SPs

The next day, Dave stopped by again in his Honda.

No cigarette offered this time.

Instead, he gave me an explanation—or a justification—as if I needed to hear it.

But what he really did was admit his intent to convert the Int/Gold Base into a closed, high-security compound designed to confine, control, and illegally detain members under the guise of religious discipline.

“Do you know why I’m even spending a dime building these berthing buildings for this shithole and suppressive crew?

Because I need to lock them up here. They keep blowing from the wog apartments in town, and I can’t have that happening anymore. I can’t have them running out and nattering about me.

So I have to build them berthing they don’t deserve. Inside the perimeter. Behind the razor-lined fences. Somewhere they can’t ever leave. Or escape. That’s why.”

I felt so much better knowing his true intentions and reasoning.

---

My Reunion with My Wife, Jenny Linson

The evening of same day Dave updated me on the status in Clearwater, Jenny came to see me. She had been part of Dave’s team that worked to set up Tampa Org as one of the first Ideal Orgs. She came back to the base with him.

After my bust from Building 50, there were no more perks and no more “Gs” for me. I was now housed out of view (except for being under the close watch of Security) at a place called OGH—Old Gilman House—a forgotten corner of the Gold base. It was a place I’d soon learn was where Dave kept the “worst of the worst.” Or maybe just his most feared enemies.

I’d just arrived when, lo and behold, Jenny showed up at my cozy little cell. Picture a 10-by-10-foot trailer so filthy and broken-down, even a backwoods trailer park in West Virginia would’ve called it a biohazard and slapped it with crime scene tape.

She approached with the same air—one she probably hoped would feel like Miscavige’s. She wasn’t happy to see me. No kiss, no hug, not even a fake smile.

Angie Quirino Blankenship was with her. Angie and I went way back in Clearwater, we were close personal friends. I had even sat with her, holding her hand overnight at her mother’s home as she died, one of the most renowned “OT VIII Ambassadors,” drowning in her own lungs during hospice care. Just the kind of thing you’d expect from someone who was supposedly “Cause Over Life” in only her early 60s.

Angie’s face was white. Expressionless. I recognized the look immediately. I’d worn it too, my first time walking through the base.

Jenny insisted on seeing inside my cell. It was obvious she’d been sent, and she was clearly following a script.

“Wow,” she said. “You’ve stooped down to this?”
“You’re a criminal over-spender!”

It came out just as unnatural and coached as when she told Anderson Cooper on AC 360 that she knew every inch of my body. (She exaggerated, by the way, but just a little)

None of this bothered me. Jenny never carried much weight with me to begin with. I knew she was robotically following marching orders, though I also sensed she enjoyed being vindictive, a trait that only became apparent when she got close to Miscavige.

“I bet you’ve gone out 2D with someone,” she added suddenly, and clearly off-script.
It’s always the go-to accusation in the Sea Org. It’s practically the only real “crime” a Sea Org member could commit.

And oh, how I wished. On one hand, I half wanted to invite her in for a quick fuck. But I wasn’t in the mood.
Not for her.
And not for her bullshit.

Especially coming from someone I’d long suspected, with good reason, was at least hoping to seduce Miscavige herself.

Hot, sweaty, dirty, once again being fucked with by Miscavige, this time using my own wife, who he’d always made sure to keep apart from me, I wasn’t in the mood for another teardown.

“Fuck you, bitch. Get out of my space and go fuck yourself.
Go fuck Dave if you haven’t already.”

She was stunned. I’d mentioned Dave by name and flat-out suggested COB was going Out-2D. I had clearly crossed a line.
She turned to Angie for backup, like she’d caught a breach in protocol.

“You see!!” she snapped. “I missed something! Look at this reaction!”
Good old mis-emotion again.

“Oooooh my god. You’re so fucking disaffected! I can’t believe you said that. Or would even think it!”

She grabbed Angie by the arm and stormed off.

I was sure it would get back to Dave and I sort of hoped it would.
But it didn’t.

Which told me I might not have been too far off.

---

Jenny’s Fate and Becoming CO CMO Int

A week or so later, I ran into Jenny again fate would have it, she’d been thrown back into the Hole.

She got a bigger trailer than mine. But at least I had privacy.

She was as disaffected as me now. Maybe worse.

I cover most of what happened next in a previous story (Where Is Shelly Miscavige Part IIIA but my next hurrah started when I ran into Dave on a walk to the Massacre Canyon Inn for dinner and ended up in the Hole. For the first time.

When I arrived, Jenny was at the head of the table, right alongside Marc Yager and Marc Ingber. The three of them were locked in a pathetic round-robin argument, each trying to convince the others why they should take the job of CO CMO Int, and why they themselves weren’t qualified for it.

Jenny was no more friendly toward me than the last time I saw her. Or toward anyone else, for that matter.
As soon as I had the chance, though, I did compliment her on her new digs.

It was the next night, sleep-deprived, worn out, and desperate to feel some kind of control over anything that I threw myself across the conference table and declared myself CO CMO Int.

For Dave, this was just fuel. An opportunity. A chance to use me as leverage to berate Yager, Ingber, and Jenny for abandoning their posts—something we were treated to for hours on end.

---

Building 50 Becomes A Weapon

Dave was now using Building 50 as a weapon.

He’d have people summoned to meet him at the entrance, lined with stainless steel walls. They’d be forced to stand at attention while he screamed at them and slammed their heads against the steel. I saw him do it to Greg Hughes. And of course, to Yager, Lesevre, and Ingber. I’m not sure how I avoided it. Then he complained that they’d smudged his stainless steel with their greasy hair and faces.

Pure evil. Ultimate power.

He used the three-story atrium at the center of Building 50 as his theater of control. Each wall was decorated with Scientology trademarks cut from MDF and coated in cold-rolled steel paint.

Originally, he’d ordered that they be stamped from solid cold-rolled steel. I had to explain quietly that just making the stamps alone would cost more than a luxury car. For each stamp.

And how many trademarks and service marks were there?

But that was a secret between us.
The painted MDF looked legit.

We sat at tables arranged in a triangle, with chairs placed on the outside. Dave’s camp, he, Shelly, and Lou—was stationed at the front of the room, with a whiteboard behind them and Lou’s tape recorder running nonstop. I counted at least three full tapes (around three hours each) being swapped out and run upstairs for transcription.

Sometimes, Dave would instruct us to pull withholds on one another. Then he, Shelly, and Lou would leave to the COB Wing, up above, where they could watch us from the balcony. Eating. Drinking. Pointing. Laughing.

Meanwhile, we sat there, sleep-deprived, starving, and so dehydrated the only water we saw was when it got poured over someone’s head.

The smell. The echo. Dave’s voice. It all lingered like poison in the air.

Everyone wanted to fall asleep but tried to stay awake. Everyone feared being called on because no one was following what was being said. They feared being expressionless and nodded “yes” or “no” in unison just to disappear into the background.

It looked and felt like a scene straight out of The Untouchables.

You know the one.

Capone, giving a speech to his crew at a round table. Smiling. Talking teamwork. Then rising with a bat, walking casually behind a man’s chair, and suddenly cracking his skull open in front of everyone.

Side note: Jenny and I were invited by her dad, Art Linson, to the premiere which we, in turn, invited Dave to. He tried his hardest to suck up to Art. And failed, just like he did with every other celebrity he ever tried to charm into Scientology personally and eventually would leave to others.

Marc Yager. Mark Ingber. Guillaume. The usual prime targets. Today Greg Hughes too.

Whacked on the head.
Choked from behind.
Heads bounced together.
And finally, carefully, so it wouldn’t get on his carpet water poured over skulls.

---

A Sadistic Pas De Deux (Starring David and Jennifer)

In the middle of one of this a prolonged exchange between David and Jennifer.

It played out like a private performance, an intense, ego-fueled drama with all of us as silent witnesses. It was as if no one else existed in that room, though we all very much did. I exchanged looks with Shelly more than once. We both knew what we were watching wasn’t normal. The room was electrified.

This wasn’t a love affair or weird flirtation.
Or was it?

It was a fest, sure, but not affectionate. It was a sadistic pas de deux between two small people with massive egos. Jenny, for reasons I still can’t fully explain, seemed compelled to push back, carefully. And Dave, for reasons only he knew, allowed it. Carefully.

Maybe there was something between them after all. The whole thing became theatrical. Intimate in a twisted way. And the rage? It was deeper than I’d ever seen before.
This wasn’t just about power, it was personal.

Jenny edged the line, toe by toe. And Dave let her: until he didn’t.

He became visibly, dangerously enraged, so much so that for a moment, I thought he was going to punch her. Or beat her to the ground. Right there and then. And this time, he wasn’t looking to Shelly or Lou to do it for him as he’d done with other women he wanted to beat. He wouldn’t have let anyone else take that from him. He wanted the satisfaction for himself.

(Where was Jenny’s husband, who might’ve come to the rescue, you ask? He was there in body only, a spectator, with absolutely no skin in the game. Not in this one. Or any of the others playing out.)

Instead of hitting her, Dave violently knocked everything out of her hands—books and plastic CD binders she’d been holding at the front of the room like she was onstage with him. The binders burst into pieces, CDs flying across the room. The bindings of the books tore loose. And for a second, it looked like Dave wished it had been her hitting the ground instead of the binders.

That’s when Jenny broke.

She started screaming, loud, incoherent, harsh. Then she collapsed into a sobbing pile on the floor.
It was primal. Tears pouring down her face, gasping like she was drowning in her own collapse.

The meeting was over.
Jenny stormed out.
Everyone else was told to get back to the Hole.

I was instructed to speak to her and “find out what was going on”, like I had caused it. Or had a clue. Or gave a shit.

I caught up with Jenny, who at first screamed for me to leave her alone but then, as if she’d suddenly had an idea, she wrapped herself around me like she needed my support. And a shoulder to cry on.

I was her husband, after all.

It wasn’t heartfelt. It was pure theatrics and I knew it.

She tried to explain, incoherently, that Miscavige was making it personal, that he was targeting her. She “just didn’t understand,” she said.

It was dramatic—but not heartfelt. It was clearly theatrical.

And part of me, maybe all of me, couldn’t have cared less.

What was clear was the insanity of it all. Every single one of us, walking from Building 50 back down to the Hole, looked and moved like zombies, too tired to think, too tired to even put one foot in front of the other.

From a distance, we looked like drunken soldiers, staggering.

Lou followed up with a call from the Officer’s Lounge, I could picture her there exactly she asked for an explanation.

I gave her the only rational one I had:
Jenny, like everyone else, hadn’t slept in days.
Everyone was brain-dead. That’s it.

Minutes later, a single folding cot, complete with a pillow and blanket, was brought into the Hole conference room.

It was placed right on top and in middle of the large conference table.

Lou instructed Jenny to lie down and sleep “by order of COB.”

“And the rest of you can sit here and watch her until she wakes up!”

Pure Dave.

I was sickened. But Jenny calmly walked to the bathroom, washed her face, freshened up, and returned like she was settling into a five-star spa treatment. She did it in such a way that it almost said, COB cares about me. He’s pampering me. I’m special.

She didn’t give anyone else a thought. And the fact that the cot was on top of the conference table? That probably felt perfectly appropriate to her after being treated so terribly.

Lights out.

I didn’t stay. I wanted to hurl.

I walked into the adjacent room, my new office as CO CMO Int and collapsed. I don’t even remember my head hitting the floor. But that’s where I found it four hours later when I was woken up.

Four hours, if my math was right, that brought me to maybe eight or nine broken hours of sleep over the past… two, three, maybe five days?
Could’ve been more. Impossible to know anymore.

---

Saved By The Bell and Maiden Voyage Event Preps

Marc, Mark, Jenny, and the rest of them were whisked off to the Lodges for Event Preps.

Dave lived for the events. And for the Event Preps.

The Hole was just the holding tank in between.

When a major event came around, it was all hands on deck, everyone scrambling to serve Dave hand and foot so he could look like the savior he wasn’t.

I was instructed that I would not be going to the Freewinds.
A clear sign that Miscavige had taken my new title “CO CMO Int” just as seriously as I had.

I believe Dave knew I was pushing back now. Trying to regain control.
Something in me had changed.

First, the berthing building paint job.
Then, the grab for CO CMO Int.
Now, I cared less about Jenny than he probably thought I did or cared to.

But the truth is, the last thing Dave wanted was change or for anything he demanded to actually get done.

And I was about to learn just how far he’d go to stop it.

---

Reality Settles In

The Int and Gold crew were scheduled to depart for the Freewinds tomorrow.

I was alone again in my CO CMO Int office, surrounded by yet another mountain of binders, this set even bigger than the ones for Berthing. These binders held the records of countless org board and posting proposals, every single one of them rejected by Miscavige. Every one. For years. It meant the hole was older than I had supposed.

And then there were the transcripts. Rants. Tirades. Power tantrums, word-for-word, captured on tape and typed out with religious fervor.

The theme was consistent:
No one but Dave could work out the org boards.
But he couldn’t do it because no one would give him the time. He had to do all the events himself now.
And even if he had the time, there was a bigger issue:

Not a single person at Int was qualified for any post.

For example Mike Rinder, who’d run OSA forever, wasn’t qualified for WDC OSA. Total failure. Disaster on CO OSA Int. Dave claimed he had to personally handle every legal and PR flap because “Rinder was an SP anyway.”

HOW DARE ANYONE PROPOSE RINDER FOR ANYTHING!
Only an SP would propose an SP.

And yet, proposal after proposal still named Rinder. WDC WISE. CO CMO Int. On and on.

Rejected. Forcefully. Often followed by physical blows.

Yager. Ingber. Jenny. Fifty, maybe a hundred others.
REJECTED.

It was a dead end.
An unresolvable problem.

And not by accident.
It was perfectly designed that way.

---

Marty Rathbun Congratulates Me On My New Position

I hadn’t seen the Inspector General, Marty Rathbun, for almost two years.

Russ and I had last encountered him in his office at the Upper Villas. He was broken then. Apologetic. He admitted he’d failed. Said he was no longer capable of doing anything right. Said he’d committed the ultimate treason against Scientology.

He was just another zombie, like the rest of us.

He and RTC were locked up at the Villas, just as Int had been locked in the trailer before the trailer became “The Hole.”

He stepped into my office, closed the door behind him, and placed both hands on my shoulder like a priest giving last rites.

“You’re doing a brave thing,” he said, “taking on the CO CMO Int post.”

Then he laughed strangely. “But I guess you know that… considering everyone else is running from it.”

I didn’t laugh. I didn’t think he was joking. I thought it was a warning.

“Look,” he said, “I honestly don’t know if I can help you. But if you think of anything, anything man, just call me.”

He knew what I was starting to suspect:
This wasn’t a position.
It was a setup.

---

Shelly Gives Me My Marking Orders

The next surprise visit was Shelly.

The door swung open so hard, the knob punched a hole in the wall. She didn’t notice. Didn’t care. Slammed the door shut behind her with such force the whole trailer shook.

Her body language was all over the place, twitchy, jerky, agitated. Like someone who’d just done a hit of something toxic. I’d never seen her like this.

“Get your BITCH, your CUNT, your WHORE wife away from Dave!” she exploded. Her face was red. Her voice cracked. But I could tell this wasn’t fully aimed at me. Not really.

“She’s down there hanging her tits in his face while they talk about the event! I’m so sick of her and what she’s trying to do!”

Before I knew what I was saying, I snapped:

“Shelly!” (Yeah, no “Sir.”)
“What the FUCK am I supposed to do about it? As a matter of fact what are you going to do about it!? I have no control here whatsoever!”

She paused.
“Whatever,” she muttered, instantly dropping it.

Then:
“Dave said if you don’t have the org boards and postings done before he gets back, you’re off the post. You get one chance at it.”

I wasn’t surprised.
I was already looking forward to it.

“Do you think you can get it done?” she asked.

Then, in the same breath:
“By the way, I truly appreciate what you did. It seemed to knock something loose. I’m hoping maybe we can get it done?”

I told her the truth:
Based on everything I’d read, all the submissions and rejections, I didn’t think I had a chance in hell.
But I’d try.

Shelly looked just as mentally dead and exasperated as the rest of us—just a little better fed and a little better rested.

“You have no idea, Tom she confided in me. This has been going on for a very long time. I just… I don’t know how to resolve it. It’s almost like he doesn’t want to resolve it.”

She shook her head.

“This base… and all the SPs on it—” (She meant the very ones I was supposed to propose for posts) “—they’re making him crazy.”

Then she added, almost like she was saying it to herself:
“I’ve just got to get him away from here…”

Right.
Away from here.
After I just spent multi millions building him and her a brand-new office.

I replayed her words in my head. Everything was looping in real time now. My skull was pounding.

“Tom!!!” she snapped. “Did you hear a fucking thing I said!?” I hadn’t. Time was up.

Her beeper went off.

“I’ll do what I can to help,” she said, already halfway to the door. “But I’ve gotta go.”
“Good luck, I guess.”

She stormed out with the same force she came in, this time the doorknob stayed in the wall.

Off they all went to the Freewinds. I went to work on an impossible proposal.

---

CHAPTER 4

I apologize. Again.

I’m going to have to wrap this up in the next chapter.

It’s after 6 p.m. now. I’m calling it for the day.
Tonight, I’ll have a stiff drink and try to put this all out of my mind—at least while I’m awake.

We’re getting close now.
To what finally cracked me.

Not broke me.
But when push came to shove.