Now we turned a corner onto a broad avenue. It was a part of the city I’d never seen before. The worst part, I thought. There were pine trees growing up on either side of the road, but under the trees, there were piles of garbage. Amid the garbage, I saw rows of sheds—shanties with walls of wood and roofs of corrugated tin. On some of them, the fourth side was open to the weather—no wall but a blanket that could be pulled off the roof and used for a curtain. I could see women with their children sitting inside the sheds, sometimes men too. It seemed unbelievable that anyone was actually living in this sort of poverty in the middle of the capital, but there were a lot of them, one shed after another, one family after another.
I had risen to my knees in the truck bed by this time in order to get a better view. Holding on to the bed wall, I leaned out and looked up ahead down the road.
At the end of the avenue stood the prison.
Two large gates rose, framed by guard towers on either side. At the top of the towers were enclosures with glass walls, men with guns standing watch inside. As our trucks approached, the gates swung open. We passed beneath the towers—beneath the guns—into an open courtyard surrounded by white walls with barbed wire on top. On the other side of the courtyard was a large stone building, grimy tan. The sight of it sent a fresh spurt of fear through me. It might have been any government building, an office building or something. But I took one look at the place and knew somehow that horrible things happened in there and that a lot of the people who entered never came out.
The girls’ truck reached the front of the building first, then ours pulled up behind it. I watched as the rebel gunmen hustled Meredith and Nicki off the truck bed and marched them inside. I caught a glimpse of Nicki’s face. She was pale and there were tears glistening on her cheeks. But she was quiet, her lips pressed tight together now as if she were trying to keep herself from losing control and screaming. As for Meredith—well, as always, her back was very straight, her face very still, her eyes very clear. Fearless, Palmer had called her—and that’s how she looked: fearless.
Palmer had asked her what had happened to make her like that, to make her fearless. In that moment, I wondered the same thing myself, because I was definitely not fearless. I was full of fear—for myself, yes, but especially for the girls.
The girls were taken inside, and the soldiers brought me and Jim and Palmer off the trucks and marched us into the building after them.
Everything moved very quickly then. They rushed us through a security checkpoint crowded with guards. Past gates, down empty halls. I tried to keep track of where the girls were being taken. But I also kept seeing things that claimed my attention and inflamed my terror. I saw men with brutal faces toting guns and clubs. I saw people lying on hallway floors, unconscious—one in a pool of blood. I saw a woman with two children clinging to her skirts. The woman was screaming and crying and holding out her hands in supplication to one of the gunmen—who ignored her. I felt like scenes from a horror movie were flashing in front of me. Only it wasn’t a movie. It was real.
We were taken down a flight of stairs into a cellar with rough stone walls. There were bare lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling. There were small patches of glare beneath the bulbs, then long passages of darkness. The girls went down a corridor to the left, and I had to bite my lip to keep from shouting out as I lost sight of them. Palmer and Jim and I were hustled along—under another bulb, through more darkness. Then I saw a thick metal door with a sliding steel panel in it.
The door opened and we were shoved through. We were in a stone cell lit by the glare of a single bare bulb.
Jim staggered against the wall as he was thrown in. “I demand to see President Cobar,” he shouted. “He’ll want to hear what I have to tell him.”
The guard slammed the heavy door shut. We heard the bolt shoot home.
Did I say I was full of fear before? I guess that wasn’t quite true—I couldn’t have been totally full because when I saw this place, my fear rose.
It was a dungeon. I mean, really. Like something out of a movie about knights in armor. All that was missing was a bearded prisoner chained to the wall. It was just an empty room of rough stone. Just stone walls and the iron door and the bare bulb. Nothing else. Oh, wait—there were also two buckets in a corner. One of the buckets was filled with water.
My eyes passed over the place. Came to rest on the two buckets. I stood there staring at them stupidly.
“One’s the sink, one’s the toilet,” Palmer told me.
“Uch,” I said.
“I asked for the room with cable TV, but they were booked up.”
I tried to laugh, but I was too heavy inside to work up the energy.
“This is madness,” Jim said, pacing angrily. “It’s insanity. We tell them we’re innocent tourists and they put us in here? If they would just let me talk to President Cobar for five minutes . . . If they would just let me talk to somebody.”
Yeah, that’s sure to help, I thought. But I turned to Palmer. He had moved to one wall—the wall across from the door. He put his back against it and slid down and sat on the floor, one knee lifted, one arm draped over his knee. He looked relaxed. Or, that is, his body looked relaxed. And he was still wearing that small, mocking half smile.
But the warrior look in his eyes hadn’t changed at all. He kept those eyes trained on the door.
“What do you think they’re gonna do now?” I asked him.
He glanced up at me as if he had forgotten I was there. He shook his head—he didn’t know the answer. He looked at the door again.
“They took over the city fast,” he said. “Very fast. They have the prison. Helicopters. The army must’ve run for it— or joined them. Cobar must’ve had this well planned. He must have had a lot of support from within the government.”
“I heard shooting in the city as we were coming in,” I said. “I thought maybe there was still some resistance.”
But Palmer shook his head again. “That wasn’t battle. Those were executions. It’s a different sound.”
“That’s not good,” I said, licking my dry lips. “Executions.”
“No,” said Palmer. “It’s not.”
“They’re not just going to execute us,” said Jim, pacing back and forth. “Why would they execute us? It’s like we told them: we’re tourists. We just want to go home.”
Anger flared in me. “They don’t need a reason!” I nearly shouted at him. He was really starting to get on my nerves. How could somebody be so blind to what was right in front of him? “They almost executed us once already, Jim. We were just as innocent then.”
“Ach.” Jim waved off the idea. “That was Mendoza—a provincial idiot. Fernandez Cobar’s a sophisticated man . . .”
“Right,” I said bitterly. “He wrote a book. Maybe he’ll beat us to death with it and save bullets!”
Jim went on pacing. I turned my back on him.
“You think they believe us about being tourists?” I asked Palmer nervously. “You think they’ll eventually let us go or . . . ?”
Palmer lifted his eyes to mine, and if my heart could have sunk any lower, it would have.
“They’ve got the city, they’ve got the army, they’ve got the country,” Palmer said. “There’s nothing to stand in their way. They can pretty much do what they want now. And there are a lot of people who’ll cheer them for executing Americans.”
“Well, yeah,” Jim muttered—as if he thought executing Americans sounded like a great idea, as if he thought they could execute Americans without bothering him at all.
I shook my head. “I don’t see how this can get any worse,” I said.
And the moment I said that, we heard the bolt slide back. The dungeon door swung open.
And Mendoza walked in.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
So much for our story about being tourists. Mendoza knew exactly who we were. He had ordered our executions once, and I saw no reason he wouldn’t do it again. I thought about that—a
nd then I thought about Meredith. Meredith, who had spit in Mendoza’s eye; Meredith, who had defied him. She was somewhere in this dungeon now, the same as us, helpless like us. And I knew Mendoza would not have forgotten how she’d insulted and humiliated him in front of his men.
As the rebel stepped into the little cell, I saw that he had changed since we had seen him in Santiago only a few days before. His lean, broad-shouldered body had a new easy swagger to it. His rough features were relaxed, and the cruelty in his black eyes was almost gleeful. He was more sure of himself. More sure of his power. Well, of course, why not? The entire country belonged to Cobar now. Mendoza could do whatever he liked.
Two men with machine guns stepped into the cell behind him. The last one in shut the heavy cell door.
Jim stopped pacing. I stood still as well.
Palmer, sitting relaxed against the wall, looked up—and smiled broadly, as if some old buddy of his had dropped by for a visit.
“Well, well, well,” said Palmer. “If it isn’t Señor Mendoza.” He gestured at the cell. “Welcome to my extremely humble abode.”
Mendoza grinned back at him, just as friendly a grin as Palmer’s. His hand rested lightly on the butt of the pistol strapped into the holster on his belt. “If you don’t get on your feet in the next second and show respect for me, I will have you shot dead right here,” he said.
Palmer laughed out loud—as if Mendoza had made some pleasant remark, the kind of joke you might make at a party or something. He got his feet under him and pushed himself up the wall, saying, “Well, then I will definitely stand up right away to show my deep respect for your power to kill me.”
Mendoza, still smiling, looked at him. Then at Jim. Then at me—a look that made the strength go out of me. He came forward casually until he was standing in front of Palmer, up close. The two men were eye to eye, smiling, but not really smiling, if you know what I mean. I was barely breathing, just waiting for Mendoza to strike Palmer down. Who was there to stop him now?
Mendoza turned and looked over his shoulder at the rest of us—then at Palmer again. “By direct order of the president, I have been assigned to question you about your suspected counterrevolutionary activities. You—and your lady friends.”
I had to swallow down the words that came up into my throat. I knew enough not to start making empty threats.
Jim said, “That’s ridiculous. We’re not counterrevolutionaries. If you’d just let us explain . . .”
One of Mendoza’s two gunmen stepped toward Jim and lifted his rifle, ready to drive the butt into Jim’s head. Jim shut up and, cowering, covered his face with his hands—as if that would have stopped the rifle.
Luckily, though, Mendoza made a small gesture and the gunman lowered the weapon. Sure. Mendoza didn’t need to bully us now. He had all the power—and all the time in the world to do whatever he wanted. He could torture us at will and at his own chosen speed.
He turned away from Palmer. Looked at Jim.
“You tell me you are not counterrevolutionaries . . .”
Jim slowly lowered his arms. “No. We’re not. I have great respect for President Cobar. I’m familiar with his work.”
“Ah. Well. I am glad to hear this.” He took a step across the little cell and stood in front of Jim as he’d stood in front of Palmer—too close—smiling too much—dangerous. “But then, if you have such respect for our president, perhaps you could explain to me . . .” He gestured toward Palmer. “What are you doing in the company of a man who supplies guns to our enemies?”
Jim’s eyes went wide, his mouth came open. He stared from Mendoza to Palmer. He said, “I . . . I mean, we didn’t . . . We never . . . We didn’t know anything about that . . .”
“And this young man,” said Mendoza, gesturing at me so that I stiffened, my heart thundering in my chest. “We have witnesses who saw him murder a revolutionary guard in cold blood.”
I swallowed hard at that. And Jim licked his lips, still gaping. “But he didn’t . . . They were . . . We were just trying to . . .”
“Well, well, well, never mind,” said Mendoza in a friendly voice. He held up his hands as if all were forgiven. “We will straighten it all out in the interrogation room, no? In the interrogation room, all the confusion will end, all the lies will stop, and only the truth will remain.”
“But you don’t understand!” said Jim. “Really, if I could just explain . . .”
“Oh, believe me, you will explain. You will explain everything. There is not a single thing you will not tell me in the end.”
Yeah, well, I was pretty sure that was true. By the time they were finished with us, we’d probably tell them the moon was made of marmalade if that’s what they wanted to hear. For my part, if they wanted me to confess I’d shot that guy with the grenade just for the pleasure of it, I knew that’s exactly what I would say eventually. I didn’t think I was the sort who’d be able to stand up to torture like some kind of hero. Torture? Man, I don’t even like going to the dentist.
“So,” said Mendoza, “who will volunteer to go first?” He put his hands behind his back. Moved from one to the other of us as if he were a shopper looking at neckties, pondering the positives and negatives of each selection. Oh, he was having a good time now, Mendoza was. He considered Jim first. “Perhaps it will be you. Since you have so much respect for our president. Perhaps you are eager to explain your actions.”
Jim’s mouth opened and closed like he was a fish out of water. “I . . . I . . . ,” he said very softly.
But Mendoza had already turned away from him, had already turned to me.
He stood over me, his black eyes boring into me, full of good humor and anticipation. My mind started to race over all the things they would do to me to cause me pain. Suspend the imagination, I thought desperately. Don’t worry about anything. Pray about everything instead. But Mendoza’s eyes seemed to empty me of everything but terror and I stood there, unable to think, unable to speak, unable to move.
“What about you, my young friend?” he asked. “You are the gallant gentleman, as I remember. You are the one who stands up for the ladies, yes?”
He paused for me to answer, but all I could do was lick my dry lips, my hands trembling at my sides.
“Well, since you like the ladies so much,” Mendoza went on, “perhaps you would enjoy watching me question them first . . .”
“You thug!” I screamed—and my voice cracked so that I sounded about twelve years old. Tears filled my eyes. “You dirty gangster thug, I wish I could . . .”
“Shut up, kid!” Palmer barked at me.
But Mendoza only laughed. He waved Palmer quiet. “No, no,” he said. “Let the gallant gentleman speak his mind. He will be speaking even more of his mind before long.” He stopped smiling suddenly. “Before long, he will see things and experience things he has not even imagined.”
I wiped angrily at my eyes with my hand. I wanted to wipe that arrogance off Mendoza’s face with my fist. I wanted to knock him right through the dungeon wall. But I knew if I tried it, one of those gunmen would pound me senseless. So I just stood there, furious. I’ve never felt so helpless in my life.
And Mendoza, to rub the insult in, sneered with disdain and turned his back on me. He returned to stand in front of Palmer, as he had before. Smiling, just as he had before.
“But all in all, I think we should begin with you, Señor Dunn,” he said. “These others—they are really only children, isn’t it so?”
Palmer nodded. He still looked relaxed—he still wore his mocking half smile—and his eyes were still a warrior’s eyes. “Yes,” he said. “It’s so.”
“Spoiled American children who have lived their rich, free, peaceful American lives and don’t know what the real world is,” said Mendoza casually, as if he were just making conversation. “They think a tragedy is when they can’t afford the car they want or to buy a new telephone.”
“That’s right,” Palmer said.
“You are their only
strength. You are their real power. You are the one thing that has kept them alive in this country. Am I right?”
“Pretty close,” Palmer said.
“Mm,” Mendoza said. And grinning, he went on: “And when they see that you are broken, when they see you on your knees, weeping and begging me for mercy, then they will know that there is no hope for them.”
And Palmer—so help me, I’m not making this up— Palmer grinned right back at him. As if he and Mendoza were just two old friends chatting. And he said, “That’s right, Señor Mendoza. That’s exactly right. When they see me on my knees begging you for mercy—or begging you for anything— that’s when they’ll know there’s no hope left at all.”
I think it took Mendoza a moment to understand what Palmer had just said. He started to laugh—and then abruptly he stopped laughing. Because, of course, Palmer was telling him that we would never see that, we would never see him broken, there would never come a time when our hope was gone.
And it was as if Palmer had slapped the rebel without moving a muscle. Mendoza’s face convulsed, his lips twisting down, his eyes flashing with rage. As he had with me, he turned his back on Palmer. He walked away from him, back toward the cell door. And as he did, he snapped his fingers at the two gunmen.
“Bring him to the interrogation room,” he said.
At once, the two gunmen charged forward and seized Palmer by the arms.
One second later they were both dead.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I never saw a human being move so fast. It was some sort of serious kung fu movie action, over so quickly my eye couldn’t even record it in detail. I remember moments of it—like snapshots kind of, frozen in my brain. Palmer’s open hand jabbing up like a knife. The same hand slicing like a sword. The one guard reeling backward, his mouth open, his tongue out, his eyes wide. The other guard folding at the knees and collapsing to the floor like a dropped rag doll. And Palmer’s arms wheeling around—like he was doing some kind of magic act, you know, trying to distract your attention. But what he was doing was twisting the second guard’s rifle off his shoulder even before the guard had time to drop.