从哪里可以得到看守的制服？见鬼了，监狱里到处都是制服。这里任何一个狱警身上都穿着制服。如果拿枪对着他，我敢打赌他一定非常乐意将制服给你。

还记得吗，我曾经计划翻过两个看守塔中间的墙，在大雾的掩护下逃离东区（监狱）。在大雾下，守卫除了一些制服的影子什么也分辨不出来。当我开始爬上楼梯的时候，不管如何信任这套制服，守卫也将不可避免的产生怀疑，但是如果我们不仅有守卫的制服，还有他们一起行动，如果事情变得更加糟糕，我们能够把他们当做人质。

我开始有意的观察天气情况。并没有迹象表明大雾会笼罩东区，但是会有更好的情况，冬天的暴风雪，这肯定会更好。暴风雪摧毁了一切，事情变得乱七八糟。考虑到这么大的暴风雪，人们都跑出来开始紧急维修。一些狱警拖着梯子靠在墙上，这会让塔上的守卫不再思考这个问题，而这正是我想要的。让他们足够的困惑，无法确定，而不愿意开枪射击。制造混乱，让他们什么也不做。每次你没有完成你本应该完成的事情时，当你的疑惑越来越多的时候，你更加倾向于不做。因为你要为你延迟行动的好处辩护，你要相信你所做的都是对的。

就这样，我得到了让整件事情进行的灵感。我不会在小巷里将两个梯子绑在一起，我会在外面，动力房前面做，就好像我在这个世上有足够的权力呆在那里。

首先进入他们脑海里的疑问会是一个温和的问题，保持安全距离，不要体现出即时的威胁。

在开始的几个星期里，这些想法涌现在我脑海。

在第一天我就知道出去的唯一条路就是通过那个钢门进入到中心区域。而且即使在检查牢房时，钢门打开的时间也只有几秒钟，我可以看到这个过程。当你进入到囚室区域时，一边是浴室，另一边是通往运动场的小钢门。你进入15英尺后才能看到囚室（理解不清晰）。有充分的理由，坚硬的钢门的某些特性会给安保人员迷之自信，这个打满了铆钉的见鬼的钢门就是一个例子。但是，正是这些钢门和小小的窗户，他们不得不放弃一些关键部位的视野。这些视野死区的原因是守卫从中心区域往下看，无法看到任何东西（ until then不知道作何解）。当然，夜班狱警直接从外面窥视可以看到很多，但是即便如此，在角落里还是有盲区，这就是我们后来蹲的地方。

这安保系统开始暴露出它的弱点了。

时机必须非常完美。我们必须快速行动并在有人反应前接管中心区域。甚至在白天中心区域也是要塞。如果在晚上你控制了中心区域，你就拥有了一切。

我们必须准确的知道我们将面对什么，当然，McGee 会为我核实情况。他逐步告诉我，晚上在中心区域通常至少有8名狱警，包括一个 副巡长。他还能为我精确的画出通讯系统的图表。唯一他无法替我找出的是他们将枪支放在哪里。他告诉我，所有狱警都没有带枪，甚至副巡长也没有。这也是安保措施。如果狱警都没有手枪，就没有犯人可以从狱警手中抢到枪。很显然，武器一定在某个容易获得的地方。

在新新监狱，在走廊的墙上有个武器库，走廊一直有人巡逻。为了避免正面袭击，武器被隐藏起来了。在东部州监狱，他们有个武器库，堆满了步枪和其他枪支，对它最好的描述是，中心桌子后面间隔的保险库。在前面你可以通过缝隙看到它们。

麦基McGee告诉我中心区域的走廊在晚上无人巡逻。在副巡长的桌子后面有个小保险箱，但是他无法知道里面是什么。我猜，枪一定在走廊的某个地方。很显然，他们感觉晚上暴动一定会在牢房内发生。这种过于自信的感觉到处可见，正是我所希望看到的。

这个计划看上去很好，我一直都知道我要偷偷的带一把枪在身边。用枪对付手无寸铁的人是最有效的办法。唯一的麻烦是，我绞尽脑汁也没有想到办法解决这个问题。

除了收集所有的信息，麦基McGee还是克利尼Kliney和艾肯斯Aikens的可靠信使。每次我要和他讲话时，我只要向夜班狱警抱怨我又发烧就可以了。

原文：
205-206页

Where would I be able to get a guard’s uniform? Hell, the prison was just full of them. They could be found hanging from any officer in the place. Put a gun on him and I’ll bet he’d be only too happy to give it to you.

I had planned on going over the wall between two guard towers once before, remember. The plan to escape from Eastern under cover of a heavy fog. In a heavy fog, the guards would be able to make out nothing except some uniformed figures. A certain suspicion was going to be aroused in even the most trusting of breasts when I started to climb up the ladder, but if we had the guards’ uniforms we’d also have the bodies they came from. If worst came to worst, we’d be able to use them as hostages.

I began to watch the weather patterns studiously. Nothing showed up like the fog that sometimes blanke ted Eastern. What did show up was just as good. Maybe even better. A heavy winter snowstorm. Sure it was better.

+Snowstorms knock things down and put things out of order. You think of a heavy snowstorm and you think of men going out on emergency repairs. Some officers lugging a ladder to the wall was still going to cause the tower guards to stop and think, but that was just what I wanted, wasn’t it. To keep them just confused enough, just uncertain enough, to make them reluctant to start shooting.

+To sow confusion and reap inaction. Every time you fail to do something that you are charged with doing, the easier it becomes not to do it when your suspicions are aroused again. Because now you have a vested interest in defending that decision not to have acted earlier. You want to believe that you had been right.

It was right there where I got the inspiration that made the whole thing go. I wouldn’t lash the two ladders together in the alley. I would do it out in front of the powerhouse as if I had every right in the world to be there.

The first question that was put into their minds would be a very mild one, off at a safe distance, posing no immediate threat.

That much of it came together for me in my first couple of weeks there.

I had known from the first day that the only way out was through the steel door and into the hub. And even though the door was never kept open for more than a couple of seconds during the cell checks, I could see how it could be done. As you came into the cellblock, there was a bathroom-shower on one side and the smaller steel door leading out to the exercise yard on the other. The cells didn’t begin until you were about fifteen feet in. With good reason. There’s something about solid steel that fascinates security people and this one was a hell of a specimen, studded all around with big rivets. But by going for all that steel and so little window they had given up some crucial areas of visibility. The reason for all that dead space was that the guard looking down from the hub couldn’t see anything until then. The night guard peering in from directly outside would be able to see a great deal more, of course, but even with him there would be a blind spot in the corner, and that’s where we would be crouching.

The security was turning against itself again.

The timing would have to be perfect. We would have to strike swiftly and take over the hub before anybody could react. Even during the daytime, the hub was the stronghold. If you had control of the hub at night, you had it all.

We were going to have to know exactly what we were going to be confronted with, though, and McGee was willing to check it out for me. He was able to tell me, by degrees, that there was always a minimum of eight officers at the hub at night, including a captain. He was also able to pretty much diagram the whole communications setup for me. The only thing he never could find out for me was where they kept the guns.

None of the officers ever carried a gun, not even the captain, he could tell me that. That was security, too. If no officer has a pistol, no convict can take it away from him. Obviously, there would have to be weapons around somewhere within easy reach. At Sing Sing there was an arsenal all along the wall up on the gallery, and the gallery was always patrolled. In case of a frontal assault, they had the high ground covered. At Eastern State they had a tightly packed arsenal of rifles and guns in what could best be described as a compartmentalized vault behind the desk in the center. You could see them through a slit in the front.

The gallery of the hub was never patrolled at night, McGee told me. There was a small safe behind the captain’s desk, he said, but there was no way he could find out what was kept there. My guess was that the guns would have to be somewhere on the gallery. Apparently they felt that any uprising that occurred during the night would have to take place within the cellblock. Just the kind of overconfidence I was hoping to find all along the line.

It was looking better all the time. I had always known that I was going to have to get a gun smuggled in to me. One gun against none was a very effective voting majority. The only trouble was that as much as I racked my brains, I couldn’t figure out how I was going to do it.

In addition to gathering all the information that he could, McGee was also a reliable messenger to Kliney and Aikens. Whenever I wanted to talk to him all I’d have to do was complain to the night guard about a reoccurrence of my fever.