If We Survive

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Everything happened quickly now. Palmer and I woke the others. Moving in silence, we all rolled up the sleeping bags in the light of the heater and stowed them in the corner of the room where we’d found them.

All the while, the priest spoke to Palmer in a low, urgent voice.

“The soldiers are everywhere, my friend. They are saying you murdered two of the guards during your escape.”

“The guards and I had a vigorous discussion of the issues of the day,” Palmer drawled.

“Yes,” said the dwarfish little priest, his mournful expression never changing. “And you have put our mutual friend Señor Mendoza in a difficult position with his superiors. President Cobar seems to feel it is his fault that you and your companions have slipped their net.”

“Bad news for Mendoza,” said Palmer. “When Cobar asks for your letter of resignation, he usually takes your head with it.”

“You joke, but it’s true. If Mendoza does not return you to prison for trial and execution, he is a dead man. Therefore, he is, you might say, highly motivated to find you. And he has every available Volcano at his disposal to do the job. They have enough problems with people sending out the news on the Internet. They don’t want American witnesses escaping to go on TV and tell the world what’s happening here.”

We finished stowing the sleeping bags and gathered around Palmer and Father Miguel in the heater’s red light.

“Okay, Padre,” said Palmer drily. “You’ve got me really scared now. Tell me some good news.”

“We should move while we talk. There is reason to hurry.”

So we moved. Father Miguel switched on a small flashlight with a red filter. The red beam pierced the shadows in front of us and we followed it.

We shuttled through the cold, damp atmosphere of the corridors in a cluster, the four of us tagging along just behind Palmer and the little priest. The red beam played off the rough stone of the walls and shot into the unseen depths of the corridors. I couldn’t tell where we were going exactly, but I knew it was not the way we had come.

Father Miguel’s voice trailed back to us as we traveled.

“Mendoza knows you are a flier, of course. He is expecting you to try to escape by air. He has dispatched as many men as he can to guard the city’s two airfields.”

“That’s tough,” said Palmer. “We’ll never make it out of here on the ground.”

“No. This is why a certain gentleman who keeps his small Cessna in a private hangar has moved the plane to a little field not far from one of the catacomb entrances.”

“Nice of him,” said Palmer. “I assume he’s a friend of yours.”

“He is a friend of God’s,” said the priest. “And so he is a friend of freedom. But there is a problem.”

“Somehow I guessed there would be.”

“The field, as I say, is within reach of one of the catacombs’ entryways. But almost as soon as this gentleman landed there, the rebels set up a checkpoint on the road nearby. It is one of many they have set up to keep you and other enemies of the revolution within the confines of the city.”

“Great.”

“You will need to cross the open space behind this checkpoint very quietly and without being seen in order to reach the plane.”

We continued to move rapidly through the darkness, following the priest’s flashlight. Now and then the light picked out the skull of a skeleton lying in its wall grave. It was pretty disturbing—like one of those carnival fun houses. We’d be rushing along and then suddenly there would be this skull, this empty stare, this grinning mouth—then it would sink again into the shadows as we hurried past.

“Let’s say we make it to the plane,” Palmer said. “What then? I gotta turn the engine on at some point. Won’t the guards hear it?”

“They will,” said the priest. “We must hope you fly away very fast.”

Palmer gave a low chuckle. “We must hope, mustn’t we?”

We went on through the corridors, turning this way and that, following the beam and the moving silhouettes of Palmer and Father Miguel. Already, I could feel the tension building inside me. I was thinking about how we’d have to sneak past the guards, get across the field, get to the airplane.

I told myself to stop thinking so much. Suspend the imagination. Don’t worry about anything. Pray about everything. I did pray—and it was working pretty well…

Until I saw the stairway.

It was just up ahead: a rickety metal structure standing against one wall of the corridor, pretty much the same as the one we had come down. As we were approaching it, it seemed to lead up to nowhere, to the ceiling. But as we got closer, I saw there was a dark opening above.

Then the tension flared in me again. This was it. Our chance to get away, to get out of this country, to get home.

Our last chance.