Six Minutes To Freedom (6 page)

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Authors: John Gilstrap,Kurt Muse

BOOK: Six Minutes To Freedom
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Pablo sighed and rested his hand on his forehead. Victoria knew nothing of what they’d been doing. In his role as a leader of the NationalLiberal Republican Movement, Pablo Martinez did many things about which his wife knew nothing, and if he’d had his way, Antonio would never have been involved, either. But his son was young and wild. Antonio considered himself to be immortal, and when he’d walked in accidentally on a conversation between Pablo and Kurt, he’d put it together quickly and demanded to be made a part of it all. By all accounts, his son was one of the most active members of La Voz de la Libertad. That made him one of the first to be hunted down and killed.
“Answer me, Pablo,” Victoria pressed. “What does Antonio mean, ‘pack your things’? Are you going somewhere?”
Pablo sighed again, unsure even where to begin. “I’ll explain as we dress,” he said.
 
David Skinner didn’t know which way was up when he replaced the telephone on its cradle and turned to face his wife, Carol—Kurt’s sister.“This is ridiculous,” he said, throwing off the covers. “Kurt’s finallygotten himself arrested.”
Carol gasped.
David padded to his closet in search of a pair of pants. “Apparently, they’ve got him in custody at his house. Kimberly’s by herself and Papi’s on his way over to pick her up.”
“What
happened
?” Carol asked.
“Who knows? Maybe his junior G-man fantasies finally caught up with him.” David had had about all he could take of Kurt and his self-righteousanti-Noriega attitude. Kurt called himself the general manager of Intergraphic, but he hadn’t put in a full day’s work in God knows how long. Even when he was there, he was so wrapped up in his whispered phone calls that he might as well have stayed at home. David had lost count of the number of times he’d been counting on Kurt to take care of some critical detail for the company, only to watch him sprint out on another mysterious rendezvous.
David had long thought that Kurt was working for the CIA. He’d always dug the clandestine crap, and David could never forget the time he happened to see Kurt talking with another American in a parking lot downtown. The body language alone had told David that it was something that his brother-in-law should not have been doing. It was either spying for the CIA or it was a drug habit, and David wouldn’t entertain the latter possibility.
What really frosted his flakes, though, were the endless speeches about what a scourge Noriega was on the country. It was like sitting in a reenactment of the U.S. Continental Congress, for crying out loud. Give me liberty or give me death!
Give me a break.
No amount of ignoring would get him to shut up. And what a wonderfulpulpit Kurt had! Here he was, living in a spectacular house subsidizedby a generous U.S. government housing allowance (courtesy of Annie’s job with the Department of Defense Dependent Schools), fat with food bought from the American Commissary in Corozal, and all comfy cozy in the clothes they bought at the American PX. Their health care was paid for, and no matter what happened to the Panamanian economy, Annie’s paychecks from the U.S. Treasury would keep cominglike clockwork. Who better to make speeches about liberty and freedom than an ex-pat who hadn’t a financial worry in the world?
Meanwhile, people like Carol and David—ex-pats themselves, but he a citizen of the United Kingdom—had to eek out a living on the localeconomy. They sent their girls to Panamanian schools and did their shopping in Panamanian stores. When the banks closed down the previousyear under pressure from the Bush administration, Carol and David had had to do their shopping from the barren shelves of the Panamanian shopkeepers.
Why was it, David wondered, that political ideologies boiled most ferociously in the guts of people who had the least to worry about?
“Is Kurt all right?” Carol asked, bringing David back to the present.
“I have no idea,” David said, sitting on the edge of the bed to buckle his sandals. “But what do you bet he costs us $10,000 to get him out?”
 
The soldiers just kept coming, pouring onto their street and invading their house. Kimberly watched numbly from the Arosemenas’ front stoop. The party continued to rage behind her, while in the foreground, her world collapsed.
Her phone call had rousted the Prietos out of a sound sleep, and while they seemed nearly as rattled as Kimberly felt, they promised to deliver Erik to Nana and Papi’s house. What happened after that was anybody’s guess. She just wanted to be with somebody now. Somebody who would know what to do.
When she saw headlights roaring up from the distance, her first thought was that it was another carload of soldiers. As it came closer, it veered to her left, and for a brief moment she thought that the driver was aiming straight toward her. She clambered to her feet, preparing to jump out of the way as the car slid to a halt just a few feet away. It only took a few seconds to recognize the faces. It was Papi and David, and both of them looked mad as hell.
“What is all this?” Papi demanded to no one in particular. With littleof the height he passed on to his sons, and none of the girth, CharlieMuse still looked like the paratrooper he once had been. Thin and wiry, his shock of white hair was uncharacteristically disheveled and he needed a shave.
“They arrested Daddy,” Kimberly said. She walked toward her grandfather hoping for a hug, but he was locked in on the scene unfoldingup the hill.
“Stay here,” he said.
Together, the two men walked up the hill to engage the first officer they ran into. Kimberly guessed from the body language that Papi was demanding entry past the cordon. On most days, he was not accustomedto being denied what he wanted, but on this night—or was it morning?—things were different. Kimberly could tell from the look on his face as he stormed back to the car that he was even angrier now than he was when he’d arrived.
“Get in the car,” Papi ordered.
Kimberly didn’t move. Couldn’t move. She just stood there in place, gazing back at the bedlam that once was her home. “What about Daddy?” she asked.
“In the
car
Kimberly,” Papi barked.
It was all happening too fast. Kimberly couldn’t wrap her mind around it all yet. How could she climb into a car and drive away when her father was up there in the house all by himself? How could she not go back up there and sit with him? He looked like he needed a hug as much as she did.
“Now, Kimberly! We’ll make phone calls from the house.”
In the end, she had no choice. But as she slid into the backseat of Papi’s BMW, she knew that something had changed forever. She knew that for her, childhood had ended.
6
Too distraught to either sit or stand, Kurt found himself pacing; but the pacing made his guards nervous, so he tried to stand still. It was all very disorienting. He was aware of his physical surroundings,but it was as if he were watching it all in the third person. For the time being, he found himself sitting upright in a hardback diningroom chair.
They’d been rummaging for the past hour, and he still sensed that they didn’t know what they were looking for. He thought about askingif he could help, but decided against it. At best, such a question would make him sound arrogant; at worst, it would put him in a positionof incriminating himself. He only hoped that his family and his coconspirators had started to make their way to Clayton.
“Bring Muse up here!” someone yelled. Kurt thought it was Quintero,but he wasn’t sure. Whoever it was, he was angry.
In an instant, three soldiers appeared by his chair. One of them poked Kurt in the arm, even as he was already preparing to stand. “I’m going,”he said.
It was in fact Quintero. Kurt found him standing in Kimberly’s room, fists on his hips, staring angrily at the posters on her wall. “How do you explain this?” the captain demanded.
“Those are political cartoons.”
“I know what they are. What are they doing on these walls?”
Now, just how in the hell was Kurt supposed to answer a question like that? What were they
doing
? They were just hanging there. Picturesare inanimate objects, for crying out loud. It was an obnoxious reply, he knew, but it was the first one that formed in his head, and in his head was where he kept it. What the captain truly wanted to know was why did he allow his daughter to hang them on her walls, and Kurt would die before he’d implicate his own child.
“I asked you a question,” Quintero demanded.
“I heard you,” Kurt said. He tried to keep his tone even. “But I have no answer.”
“You’ll have one by the time the evening is done,” Quintero growled.
A voice from the doorway made them both turn. “What is going on here?” It was Major Moreno. Deep scowl lines traversed his face. He took in the contents of the room in a single extended gaze, then turned to face Kurt. “This is your daughter’s room?”
Filled as it was with girlish treasures, there was no sense denying it. “It is,” Kurt said.
Moreno’s gaze shifted to Quintero. “Then we’ll let her answer for it. Bring her here.”
Suddenly, Quintero’s face darkened. “I let her go, sir.”
Moreno’s eyes glowed hot. “You what?”
“I let her go, sir.”
Kurt suppressed a smile. Quintero reminded him of a schoolboy in trouble.
“On whose authority?”
“My own,” Quintero said. “She’s only a little girl, Major. I didn’t think that she would be important to us.”
Moreno’s jaw tightened. “You didn’t think,” he said, tasting the words. “You didn’t
think
? You are not paid to think, Captain. You are paid to follow orders. Get her back. Right now.”
Suddenly, Quintero looked ill, as if he would rather
be
ill than to say what was coming next: “I can’t. I don’t know where she is. Sir.”
“Idiot!” Moreno boomed. “Suppose we need her for—” He stopped himself, casting a sideward glance to Kurt, and didn’t bother to finish the question.
“You are right, Major,” Quintero said. “I wasn’t thinking. I’m terriblysorry.”
Moreno turned to Kurt. “Where is she?”
Kurt scowled at the question. “How would I know? Not here.”
“Do not anger me, Mr. Muse,” Moreno growled. “You and I have many hours ahead of us. You and I together. This is not a good time to anger me.”
“She was scared,” Kurt said. “She could be anywhere. Last time I saw her, she was running down the street. It’s not as if we had a long time to discuss her plans.”
He was being obtuse, and Moreno knew it. The major was not amused. “Where do you think she
might
have gone, then?”
Kurt pretended to think it over for a moment before offering an innocent shrug. “I don’t mean to anger you, Major. As you say, that hardly works to my benefit. But I honestly don’t know. If I think of something, I’ll—”
“Excuse me, Major,” someone said from the hallway. Kurt turned to see a soldier with his rifle slung.
“Not now,” Moreno barked.
“But I think it might be important, sir.” The soldier was a kid, barely older than Kimberly, it appeared, but he carried himself with a military bearing that was unusual for members of the PDF. He was hard to ignore.
“What is it, then?” Moreno barked.
“I’m sorry to be listening, but I believe Mr. Muse’s daughter was just picked up by her grandfather.”
Oh, shit
, Kurt thought.
Moreno’s complexion was heading north toward purple. “How long ago?”
“She had been waiting at a friend’s house, apparently. Down the street. The house with the party.”
“How long!”
The soldier jumped at the eruption, nervously checked his watch. “Ten, maybe fifteen minutes ago.”
Moreno whirled on Kurt. “You have no idea, eh? You have no idea where your daughter might have gone, yet your parents live here in Panama City?”
Kurt eased a step backward, sure in his heart that the major was goingto strike him. On any other day, one on one, that wouldn’t have been a problem; Kurt could have kicked his ass into next week. With this much reinforcement, however, to fight back would mean suicide.
“She’s my daughter, Major. What would you do?”
Moreno trembled with rage. Clearly, he wanted to lash out, but for whatever reason, he did not. “Captain Quintero, find out where Mr. Muse’s parents live and we will pay them a visit.” He turned to leave, but stopped at the door to level a finger at his prisoner. “Bring him along.”
 
Annie felt the panic rising in her gut. It was like a balloon deep inside her belly, and with each passing moment, it grew larger and larger. She’d lost track of the number of phone calls she’d made and received in the past hour. Right now, she had Nana on the line, and she was having trouble getting her to acknowledge the seriousness of their situation.
“You need to get the children to the back gate of Fort Clayton,” Annie said for the umpteenth time. “They’re in grave danger. So are you and Papi. You need to go with them.”
“I’m not going anywhere!” Nana proclaimed yet again. “Not until you tell me what this is all about. Rita and Alex Prieto called and they’re scared to death.”
“They’re on the way with Erik, right?”
“Well, yes, but they don’t know what to think. I don’t know what to tell them. And now you say that we all have to leave the country without telling me why?”
“I don’t have time to tell you right now, Nana. I’m not holding out on you, I just don’t have the time. Kurt was working against Noriega, and now he’s under arrest. There are other people involved, too. It’s big, Nana. If you stay, they’ll use you and Papi and the children as a means to get to Kurt. They’ll hurt you.”
“I don’t believe that. Panamanians aren’t like that.”
Good God almighty, how long could this go on? “The children, then, Nana. Get the children to Clayton.”
“Where are we going to take them?”
“To the back gate.”
“There are going to be MPs,” Nana said. “What do I tell them?”
Good point. Very good point. “Can you call Major Mansfield?” Annie asked. Nana had worked as the secretary to the Provost Marshalof the U.S. Southern Command. Major Alan Mansfield was the Provost Marshal Pacific, and as such, he and Peggy had cumulatively spent hours talking to each other about one issue or another. These days, Mansfield was in charge of the military police units on the Pacificside of Panama. “Tell him that there are upward of twenty people coming to the back gate in the next hour or so. Almost all of them are going to be Panamanian citizens, and they’ll all be seeking asylum. It’s important that they be taken in immediately.”
“Twenty!” Nana gasped. “Good lord.”
“More than twenty,” Annie corrected. She was guessing here. She knew about the basic six coconspirators, but she didn’t know which were married, and she certainly had no idea how many children they might have. They would all need asylum.
“I don’t know that he has the authority to grant asylum,” Nana said. “Charlie will be back with David and Kimberly soon. Maybe you should talk—”
“Nana, no! We don’t have
time
!” How could she make her understand?“I can’t emphasize that enough. You are all in danger.”
“I don’t even know if Major Mansfield is home,” Nana said.
Annie dismissed it as irrelevant. He was or he wasn’t. She could do nothing about that either way. “Once you’re on the post, you need to find a Mr. Chiang. Everyone will know who he is. You find him, and he’ll know what to do.”
The comment seemed to take the wind out of Nana. She fell silent.
“Nana?”
“You know Mr. Chiang?” Nana gasped. “This is about Mr.
Chiang
?”
Annie heard the realization in Nana’s voice. Finally, she understood.Mr. Chiang was the CIA chief of station in Panama City, with quarters on the grounds of Fort Clayton. He had some official diplomaticcover, but such things never fooled people on the inside.
“Now you understand the seriousness of this,” Annie said.
“But Kurt said—”
“Nana, please.”
“Okay,” Nana said. The truth had finally dawned on her. “Okay, I’ll get right on it. I’ll call Major Mansfield right away. I don’t think Charlie is going to want to leave, though.”
“Let’s just worry about the kids for now.”
There was no effort made by either end of the conversation to close with a good-bye. There was so much to be done, and Annie knew that the clock was quickly ticking down to zero. The recognition in Nana’s voice when she mentioned Chiang’s name gave Annie pause. She herselfhad never heard of the man until a half hour ago, when she receiveda phone call from Suzanne Alexander, a long-time friend whom Annie knew for a fact worked for the Agency.
Suzanne had called out of the blue, unsolicited—prompted, Annie was sure, by a plea from Richard Dotson, who was one of the first peopleAnnie called after she got the news. The Alexanders, Dotsons, and Muses had long been good friends and had even vacationed together in the past. About two years ago, though, Suzanne transferred back to Langley, followed shortly by Richard, who was called back for a stint at Foggy Bottom.
However it worked, Suzanne had been very specific: they were to find Mr. Chiang at Fort Clayton. He was the one and only person who could make this work out happily.
With her phone call to Nana complete, Annie placed the phone on its receiver and realized that for the time being she had nothing left to do but wait.
“Is there anything I can do?” asked a voice from the doorway.
Annie hadn’t realized that Larry was listening. Come to think of it, she’d forgotten that he was in the house at all. “No,” she said, rubbing her temples. “All that’s left now is the wait.”

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