If We Survive

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Palmer’s plan was so simple it was kind of brilliant. Mendoza had come into the dungeon cell with two guards. He had been going to bring one of us out—one prisoner—for interrogation. And in fact, he walked out with two guards and a prisoner, exactly as he was supposed to. Except the guards were Palmer and I, and the prisoner was Jim. And if Mendoza made one wrong move, we’d shoot him. So it was a little different.

Before we left the cell, Palmer told Mendoza exactly what to do and say, speaking in rapid Spanish. I couldn’t understand the words, but I could guess the gist of it. He wanted Mendoza basically to play the part of himself, as if everything were going according to plan. Mendoza listened silently to Palmer’s instructions and gave a single, stiff nod. He was going to obey for fear of getting shot—but you only had to look in his eyes to know that he would be waiting and watching, every second, for a chance to break free.

Well, I thought, let him try.

When he was done talking, Palmer nodded toward the cell door. Mendoza took a breath—to get control over his anger, I thought. Then he pounded on the door with his fist and shouted, “Abran!” Which I guessed meant open up.

There was a second’s pause. During that second, I felt the nervousness coursing through me—a flood of adrenaline. If I had thought about it, I would’ve realized that Mendoza was probably right. We were surrounded by guards with guns, not to mention walls topped with barbed wire. We didn’t really have much of a chance of getting away with this. But somehow, although I was tense—really tense—I wasn’t as frightened as you might think I would be—or as I might think I would be. I guess I felt, like, at least we weren’t just sitting there helplessly waiting to be tortured or killed. At least, if we went down, we would go down fighting. That was something. Actually, that was a lot.

My breath caught as I heard the bolt on the dungeon door slide open. A guard in the corridor outside started to open the door—and I suddenly thought: He’ll see the bodies of the two guards! But before he could, Mendoza, as instructed by Palmer, barked an order at him. The guard moved away from the cell entrance and Mendoza stepped out into the corridor. Palmer and I quickly followed, pushing Jim ahead of us at gunpoint. And Jim marched out, looking just like a prisoner on his way to the torture cell. He looked depressed and defeated and afraid, I mean—and I’m not sure he was pretending.

The second we were in the corridor, Palmer shut the cell door behind us and threw the bolt. There were two more guards out here and Mendoza was giving them orders. One used his key to double lock the door. The others went running off, I don’t know where, to whatever chore Mendoza had told them to do.

We moved quickly. My impressions of what was happening were fleeting and confused. I was so wired, so tense. My eyes were moving rapidly every which way, looking to see if anyone recognized us or realized what we were doing. Everything went by in a kind of hectic daze.

Mendoza took the lead, but Palmer was right at his shoulder. Palmer kept up a steady murmuring in the rebel’s ear, telling him what to do, telling him what would happen to him if he didn’t do it. Mendoza’s expression remained frozen as we left the corridor of cells and entered another hall and pushed through another door into another corridor. Twice, armed guards appeared in front of us, making my hand tighten on my gun. But both times Mendoza barked orders at them and they scattered—and we marched quickly on.

Now, we were in another dark hall of cells. Naked lightbulbs burned above us and we moved through the pools of light beneath them into areas of darkness. I caught my breath as yet another armed guard approached us out of the shadows—I never saw him coming out of the dark before he was right there in front of us. Yet again, Mendoza gave him orders. But this time, the guard turned on his heel, a 180, and started marching ahead of us down the hall.

We stopped before another metal door. More orders from Mendoza as Palmer stood by watchfully. The guard unlocked the door. Threw the bolt. Stood back as the door opened.

We walked into a cell, another dungeon cell, no different than ours had been.

A huge jolt of excitement went through me as I saw Nicki and Meredith there.

The girls were huddled together against the far wall, sunk in shadow. Nicki seemed to be resting on Meredith’s shoulder. Meredith had her head tilted back, resting against the rough stone.

The girls leapt to their feet as Mendoza came in. Meredith’s face was already setting in a mask of defiance, her eyes blazing, her lips set. She looked as if she was getting ready to give Mendoza any kind of hard time she could think of.

And then her eyes flicked to the gunman at Mendoza’s shoulder: Palmer. I saw her lips part in surprise. She glanced quickly at me. She understood. She seemed to go very still, her expression wary.

“What are you going to… ?” Nicki started to say.

But then she got it too. She gave a little gasp and then, very quickly, fell silent. She edged forward, out of the shadow, into the glaring light of the single bare bulb above us. That’s when I got my first good look at her face. And I felt the anger boiling up inside me.

There was a massive red bruise on one of Nicki’s cheeks. It was already beginning to swell and turn dark purple. Her eye was almost shut. Someone had hit her, really belted her. I wondered if it was the guard who had unlocked the door for us. I wondered how he would look with a bullet hole in the center of his forehead…

We’re the good guys, remember, I told myself. Yeah, yeah, I remembered. But these guys who beat up women—they seriously tick me off.

“You are to come with us,” said Mendoza gruffly. I could tell the words were just about sticking in his throat, but he said them—he had no choice. He stood aside and gestured to the door. “This way.”

Meredith, back straight and chin lifted as always, walked majestically out the dungeon door. Nicki followed, passing close to me as she went. And as she did, she looked into my eyes. I expected to see terror there and pain, but instead there was something new—new for her, I mean. She looked… steady. More than that. Despite the ugly bruise marring her pretty features, her eyes were sort of sparkling. I almost thought she started to smile at me…

Then she went past, following Meredith out the door. Jim followed them. Then Mendoza, with Palmer and me right behind.

Now it began again: the swift march down the hall, out the door, down the next hall to the stairwell. Mendoza and Palmer went ahead with Nicki and Meredith and Jim right behind, and me in the rear as if I were guarding against the prisoners’ escape. As before, I was looking every which way. As before, I was waiting every moment for someone to point at us and shout, “Wait! Stop them!” And so, as before, the trip to the stairwell went by in those quick, frightened flashes with my pounding heart keeping rhythm as we moved.

We reached the stairs. Marched up. Stepped out of the well into the main hallway. We pushed through a gate. Down another hall. Through another gate. It was the same path we had taken coming in. The front door—the exit into the prison courtyard—had to be getting close.

Again, as we walked quickly forward, I caught glimpses of men lying unconscious on the floor—of a pool of smeared blood where a body had recently been—of a woman, the same woman who had been begging for help when we came in, now sitting in despair against a wall with one child under each arm, her head tilting forward as she tried to fight off sleep.

This poor country, I thought. This poor, sad country.

Then I raised my eyes and looked ahead and every thought left me except for one: escape.

Because I saw the prison door. The checkpoint where we had first entered. The way out.

It was just a long table with a cluster of guards standing around it. There was a metal detector, but no one seemed to be walking through it. In fact, the guards didn’t seem to be doing very much besides chatting with one another and smoking cigarettes. I guess since the rebels had only recently taken over the place, things were still a little disorganized. So the guards milled around, not knowing what to do—and just beyond them, just a few steps beyond, were the doors, the front doors out into the courtyard.

Escape.

There was a long way to go, I knew. Even once we were outside, we would somehow have to get a truck, get through the walls, get past the guard towers. I didn’t know how we were going to manage it. I couldn’t think about it yet. All I could think about was getting past that checkpoint, getting out those doors.

But something was wrong.

I saw Mendoza start to slow down ahead of us. I saw Palmer leaning in toward him, whispering something in his ear. Mendoza started to glance at him, as if in surprise. But Palmer whispered again, harshly this time, and Mendoza faced forward. He started moving again.

My mouth had gone dry. My pulse was beating so fast it was almost painful. We were so close. What was happening? What was wrong? I was weak with suspense as, step by swift step, we approached the guards standing around the checkpoint.

The guards saw us coming now. One of them—a guy who looked no older than I was—gestured at us with a cigarette. He spoke a few words to another guard standing in front of him. This other guard was standing with his back toward us. He was clearly the leader here—I could tell by the stripes on the shoulder of his uniform and the bright green beret pulled sharply to one side on his dark black hair. The young guard was telling him we were coming…

The leader turned to look our way.

I heard someone make a noise: a small choked noise of fear. It was a second before I realized that the sound had come out of my own mouth.

Because I saw that the leader—the man in the beret— was Lieutenant Franco—the rebel who had arrested us outside the city.

And I was sure he was going to recognize us.