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Authors: John Gilstrap,Kurt Muse

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BOOK: Six Minutes To Freedom
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Kimberly and Erik nodded in unison. The keeping her head down part made her nervous. Were people going to be shooting at them or something?
“Wait for me to come around and open the door.”
The kids did exactly as they were told, their hands gripped tightly together, Kimberly lugging Erik’s overnight bag. They led the way up a low hill on which sat a single family house that probably had once belonged to a major or lieutenant colonel. It was a pretty good size from the outside, two stories, but nothing like the palaces on the other side of the post where the bird colonels lived. Ski brought up the rear, keeping them moving without having to push. Up ahead, at the back door, stood another scruffy-haired soldier. He stood sort of sideways in the door, his hand hanging awkwardly by his side in a way that suggestedto Kimberly that he might have been concealing a pistol behind his thigh. All in all, the trip from the car to the door took less than fifteenseconds. Kimberly barely had time to notice that a nice day was nearly fully bloomed.
The inside of the house smelled like the former occupants, whoever they were. Old cooking smells and the faint aroma of dirty socks hung in the air like a neglected ghost. They entered through the kitchen, which appeared to be equipped with the original appliances. They’d probablybeen black and white at one time, but now they seemed cepia-toned in the dim light of the rising sun. Chipped porcelain and cracked counter tops told the story of too many rambunctious children over the years. The metal cabinets mounted to the walls had been painted so many times that they looked padded, squishy. The cabinet doors mostly gaped open, in Kimberly’s mind speaking of one last sweep to make sure that they’d been thoroughly cleaned out before the family moved away.
“The house is empty,” Kimberly said. She’d meant it as a question, actually, but thought it just as well to have come out as a statement. The answer was obvious enough.
Neither of the soldiers answered her.
“Are Nana and Papi coming, too?” Erik asked.
Ski just looked at him with a mix of sadness and curiosity. “Stay away from the windows,” he said.
The tone sounded distinctly angry, and Erik shot a look to his sisterto see if he’d said something wrong. Kimberly forced a smile and put her hand on his shoulder. She wanted to tell him that everything was fine, but absolutely nothing about any of this was even close to fine.
“Come on into the living room,” the other soldier said, gesturing through the tiny arched doorway. Again, they did as they were told.
Beyond the kitchen, they walked through a miniscule dining room that was nowhere near big enough for the table and chairs that their mother owned. The wooden floors showed terrible wear, and Kimberly wondered why people didn’t take at least good enough care of their houses to put a rug under the dining room chairs.
Leaving the kitchen, the first thing Kimberly noticed was the darknessof the place. A single overhead light in the foyer carried the burdenof illuminating the entire downstairs, and its job was made a thousand times more difficult by the fact that someone had nailed olive-drab bed sheets over each of the windows.
“Stay away from the windows,” the second soldier said, obviously unaware that they’d already been given their strict instructions.
“It’s dark in here,” Erik said.
“They don’t want people seeing in,” Kimberly explained. It was a guess, actually, but apparently a good one, judging from the expression on Ski’s face.
“Where are all the other people?” Erik said.
Never all that expressive to begin with, when presented with a directquestion, their countenances grew even blanker. Whether by choice or direction, these guys were obviously not going to be sharing any details.
They cleared the dining room in three strides and found themselves in the foyer, facing a living room with a worn sofa on one wall and bare blue-striped mattresses on the floor.
“Have a seat,” Ski said.
He had to be kidding. The mattresses were filthy. God only knew who had slept there last, and Kimberly didn’t
want
to know what they’d done on them while they’d lain there.
“I guess I know where you got the sheets for the windows,” Kimberlyquipped.
Neither soldier smiled, but as the nameless one crossed his arms over his chest, she saw for the first time the holstered pistol on his hip.
Erik pointed toward a shadow in the background behind Mr. Nameless.“Are those stairs? Where do they go?”
“Have a seat,” Ski said again. “Please.” He could make a simple requestsound as menacing as a threat to shoot.
“How long are we going to be here?” Kimberly asked. Somewhere deep in her gut, a gush of anger threatened to douse the heat of her fear. They’d done nothing wrong here. Didn’t they have some rights? Could they be treated like this legally? Like criminals of some sort? Wasn’t there some recourse? She didn’t ask any of these things, of course, but she was able to summon up one of those glares that made it very clear to everyone that she was not pleased.
Before either soldier had a chance to answer—or ignore—her, they were all distracted by commotion in the kitchen. The door burst open, and a voice that could only belong to Aunt Carol protested, “... demandto know what you are planning for us. I will not be treated this way!”
Hearing her thoughts verbalized, Kimberly was grateful that she’d limited herself to the glare. As one, Ski and Mr. Silent moved back toward the dining room to receive their latest guests.
As Carol passed through the archway into the dining room, her eyes locked right onto Kimberly and she stopped speaking.
Erik moved closer to his sister and grabbed her hand.
Kimberly felt a new breed of angst, as if she and Erik were somehowbeing held responsible for all that was happening. Suddenly, she felt like an animal in the zoo, watching as people stared at her from the other side of a cage. Somehow, this had become “us” versus “them” and Kimberly and Erik were trapped on the wrong side of the conflict.
“Have a seat,” Ski said to the newcomers, motioning toward the mattresses.
No one moved. They just stared in horror at the terrible furnishings.
Ski said, “It’s the best we could pull together on short notice.” He then went on to renew his instructions to stay away from the windows.
“I don’t understand,” Erik said. “Who’s going to see us? Who’s tryingto hurt us?”
No one even tried to answer.
Erik caught the subtext, and his face was like a giant O. “But you’ll protect us, right?” he asked, pointing to Ski’s sidearm. “That’s what the guns are for, right?”
Ski shifted uncomfortably. “If you stay away from the windows, you won’t have to worry,” he said.
They’d barely made their way to the living room when the kitchen door opened and shut again, and the two soldiers returned to the diningroom. An instant later, there were Nana and Papi.
Carol practically ran across the room to greet them. “Oh, thank God,” she said. “You did decide to come.”
Charlie set his jaw, causing his mustache to twitch. “I didn’t decide anything,” he said. “But it was pretty clear we couldn’t stay where we were.”
Kimberly and Erik hadn’t moved from their spot in the living room. As the room filled with family, she felt curiously more and more detachedfrom all of them. Even when the rest of the family settled in on their mattresses, the others remained segregated on the other side of the room, talking in clear tones about how irresponsible her father was and how many lives he had ruined. They didn’t care that Kimberly and Erik could hear every word. Even when the conversation turned mildly hopeful—“How long could they possibly keep him in custody?”—the words still hurt.
Kimberly couldn’t wrap her mind around it. Her extended family had never been one of hugs and kisses, but beneath the reserve, there had always resided a layer of love that was supposed to blossom at times like these. There were supposed to be words of encouragement, soothing tones predicting nothing but positive outcomes. There should at least have been a smile.
Maybe in a case like this, there really was no “should” or “ought.” Maybe when stresses ran this high—when exhaustion and fear combinedforces—people just reacted whatever way felt best. But God almighty, did they hear themselves, she wondered? Carol was worried about her home and her dog; Uncle David and Papi were worried about their business and employees. She supposed that all those things were bad, but she’d lost her father! She’d lost everything about her life, everything she’d ever known, and they were worried about employees and pets.
It wasn’t right. None of it was right.
Under the circumstances, would a comforting smile have been too much to ask?
11
Kurt realized with no small measure of distress that sleep deprivation would be one of their primary weapons, and already it was beginning to take its toll. His head wasn’t as clear as it once had been, and he was completely unaware of the time. Curiously, he had a watch, but without a date to correlate to the time, the hands on the timepiece could just as well have been the random spin of a child’s toy. As time wore on, he realized that he was forgetting the previous answershe’d given to questions they’d asked him, and therefore he was hesitating a little too long as the interrogations continued.
Clearly, they knew he was hiding something, but they still hadn’t been able to figure out what it was.
Hours ago, they’d transferred him yet again, this time to the San Felipeheadquarters of the DENI. Even from the outside, the squat, sprawling building looked liked the monument to misery that it truly was. Once inside, though, the misery was trumped by terror.
Gone was the shelter of the desk, replaced by yet another hardbackedchair facing a wall of file cabinets. The questions thus far had been cursory, exploratory. They were still hunting for what they’d actuallyfound in Kurt Muse. Clearly, whoever had betrayed him—and now, he was coming to grips with the fact that betrayal was the only possible explanation for his arrest—hadn’t done enough research to reportit all. But how could that possibly be? How could the PDF authoritiespossibly know to arrest him, yet at the same time not know why they were arresting him? And whatever the incentive for the betrayal—ithad to be either money or privilege, because that was the backbone of all Noriega betrayals—how could it have been realized without all the blanks being filled? It was a puzzle of the worst kind, and he sensed that he was embarking on a trip that would allow him infinite time to consider the possibilities.
One thing was clear, however: There was something about Kurt, or about his situation, that made these people nervous. He sensed that it had everything to do with some combination of his American citizenshipand the fact that Annie was a DoD employee. Under the terms of the Panama Canal Treaty, which the entire Panamanian hierarchy lived in fear of upsetting, local authorities had to treat American dependents with a certain grudging respect. No matter how you cut it, though, it seemed clear that they still had no idea that they’d collared the heart and soul of La Voz de la Libertad. To keep him on edge, to keep him from falling asleep, they positioned a blaring boom box on a table just next to his head. In one of life’s great ironies, the speakers sported the broadcasts of Radio Nacionale—the very station he and his friends had victimized so many times.
Kurt nearly jumped out of his chair as the door to the tiny office where he was being held burst open to reveal a tough-as-nails DENI interrogator. He entered the room calmly, flanked by two henchmen. The lieutenant held something in his hand, and his smirk betrayed his discovery of information he thought to be valuable.
“How long did you think you could keep your secret, Mr. Muse?” the interrogator asked in Spanish.
Kurt felt his stomach drop. The way the man was holding the paper,he couldn’t see what it was, and he wracked his brain to sort through the possibilities. He decided to stall for time. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The smirk disappeared, replaced by a hard glare. He thrust the paperforward so Kurt could see it. “This,” he said.
Kurt recoiled from the sudden movement and had to position his head just so to read what was clearly a list of names. It took him a coupleof seconds to realize what he was looking at, and when he did, he had to work hard not to smile. “That’s my son’s old Cub Scout roster,” he said truthfully.
The DENI officer looked stunned, and then angry. “Do not play me for a fool, Mr. Muse. How do you explain this?” He thrust his finger at a notation next to Kurt’s name that said PDC. “You are the Americancoordinator for the Partido Demócrata Cristiano.” The PDC—translated as the Christian Democratic Party—was considered by Noriega to be a group of seditious rabble-rousers, and its members were frequently the targets of Noriega’s henchmen.
Kurt’s relief was so profound that he could not help but laugh. “It’s a Cub Scout list! PDC stood for Picnic Day Committee. I was the chairman of the Picnic Day Committee.”
The laughter was a mistake.
“You think this is
funny
, Mr. Muse?” The officer’s eyes burned hot with anger.
Kurt’s smile evaporated. He knew he was in trouble—deeper troublethan he’d been before.
The officer said to his henchmen, “He thinks this is funny. He thinks this is a game. He thinks he can lie to us.”
Kurt tried, “I don’t—”
The DENI officer boomed, “No more lies!” He drew his 9mm Baretta from its holster as he disappeared behind Kurt.
An instant later, Kurt felt the barrel pressing tightly against the back of his skull, and then heard the sound of the hammer being cocked.
“You think it’s funny to lie, I think it’s funny to blow your brains out.” He pressed the barrel against Kurt’s head as if trying to push the weapon through his brain.
The images of Annie, Kimberly, and Erik appeared in Kurt’s mind, their faces clear and beautiful. “I love you,” he thought aloud.
 
By late afternoon, the atmosphere in the safe house somewhere in the middle of Fort Clayton had become miserable. A couple of hours into it, an MP had brought by some box lunches for breakfast—chicken patties that had seen way too much time in the deep fryer—and a couplehours after that, a female MP had come by and taken orders for special toiletry items targeted mainly at the ladies. But other than that, nothing but sleep broke the oppressive boredom. With every passing moment, Kimberly felt herself and her brother being pushed farther and farther away from the heart of the family.
Ski and Mr. Silent were clearly there to protect them from any harm, and for that, Kimberly felt a certain grudging appreciation. As uncomfortable as this place was, they didn’t even get a chance to sit down. It was a little like they were enduring the same hardships as the people they were protecting, except, of course, that they would get to go home tonight to a house they recognized.
At about 4:30, the front door opened, and five soldiers flooded into the room. Unlike the other soldiers they’d interacted with, these were actually in uniform, unafraid, it would seem, of being recognized as what they really were. In a ritual that Kimberly was beginning to get used to, none of them bothered to identify themselves. The presumptiveleader was the one with the clipboard. “Okay,” he said. “I need to know once and for all who’s going.”
“Going where?” Carol asked, rising from the sofa.
The question seemed to knock Mr. Clipboard off balance. “Your next location,” he said hesitantly.
“We’re not going anywhere,” Papi said. David confirmed the sentimentwith a nod.
The leader’s eyes narrowed as he surveyed the cast in front of him. “Which are the Muse children? The
Kurt
Muse children?”
The rest of the family pointed at Kimberly and Erik before they had a chance to point to themselves.
“Well, you two
are
going,” the soldier said. “That’s not negotiable. For the rest of you it’s an offer that I strongly recommend you take.”
“Our home is in Panama,” Papi said. Nana nodded her agreement.
“Used to be,” the soldier said. “And maybe it will be again, but right now, you are all wanted people. We assume—and so should you—that every Panamanian face out there on the street is an informer,and they’ll go instantly to Noriega and tell him exactly where you are. If you walk out of this house and off of this base, you will be on your own.”
“I see no reason to repeat myself,” Papi said, and he sat back into his chair. For him, the matter was closed.
The soldier nodded. “Respectfully, sir, I think you’re making a foolishdecision. I don’t know what your son did exactly to get in this much trouble, but whatever it was, there are a lot of people being yanked out of bed and working overtime as a result. It was big, is what I’m trying to tell you, and General Noriega doesn’t much like big things coming from Americans. This is likely to get ugly, and I have to tell you”—he looked directly at David as he said this—“if I had a daughter the age of yours, I don’t think I’d want her staying some place where her life might constantly be in jeopardy.”
“You don’t understand,” Carol started to say, but the soldier cut her off.
“I understand everything I have to understand, ma’am, which is everything I’m told. The rest of it, with all respect, is stuff I don’t care about. My heart goes out to you folks. This must be a terrible ordeal to go through, but here you are. Right now, I think you ought to think about what Panamanian prisons are really like, and decide if that’s the kind of place where you want to spend the foreseeable future.”
There it was, Kimberly thought, laid out as plain and ugly as it can get, and it was as if all the air was sucked out of the room.
“Can we have some time to think this through?” David asked.
“Take all the time you like in the next sixty seconds.” With that, the soldier retreated to a corner near the door to give the refugees some distance to talk.
When all was said and done, though, what was there to discuss? Nana and Papi were staying; that was a given the moment Papi made his initial statement. Everyone else was on their way. “Okay,” David said, recalling the soldier. “We’re going.”
The soldier made a note on his clipboard. “Good,” he said. “Now I’d like you all to gather in the kitchen, please.” As he spoke, he placed a hand on Kimberly’s shoulder to usher her in the right direction.
She resisted. “Nana? Papi? You’re not coming?”
Nana sat quietly; Papi seemed preoccupied with distant thoughts.
“We’ve got to go now,” the soldier pressed.
“But
where
?” Why was this such a difficult question? Why did everyone refuse to answer? For crying out loud, did they think they wouldn’t find out once they arrived? And then a more likely scenario blossomed in her head. She decided that the soldiers weren’t answeringbecause they themselves didn’t know. She figured that they had ordersto come and tell them to leave. It was probably someone else entirely who actually knew where they were going.
Carol started to cry. With Nana and Papi refusing to go, they truly were leaving their lives behind.
Kimberly didn’t want to watch. If they didn’t want to be a part of her life right now, she didn’t want to be a part of their emotions. Keeping Erik’s hand tightly in her own, Kimberly entered the kitchen first, and was startled to see the number of people there. There were eight or nine of the plainclothes soldiers, and all of them looked very seriousand very nervous. The weaponry had increased as well, the pistols of before were replaced with black, lethal-looking rifles—M-16s, she thought, but she was never much into which rifle had what name.
“We’re going to do this just like before,” Ski said, finding his tongue again, “only this time in reverse. When I tell you to go, I want you to go very quickly down the hill to the waiting car and get inside as quickly as you can. Understand?”
The young Muses nodded in unison.
Ski allowed himself a smile. “Good.” He brought a portable radio to his lips and said, “First package is ready.”
Erik scowled at the terminology, but at a glance from Kimberly said nothing. Frankly, neither one of them had ever thought of themselves as packages before.
The Skinners entered the kitchen a few seconds later, and Carol gasped at the number of people.
“Not yet,” Ski said to them before they could form a question.
“You go second.”
Ski’s radio broke squelch and a metallic voice said, “Package one, go.”
“This is it,” Ski barked to the others, and as he held the kids back, the entire cast of soldiers poured out of the kitchen to form a double line leading down the lawn to the cars. It almost looked like an honor guard marking the path to the waiting car for a bride and groom leavinga church, except this guard faced away from the guests of honor, with rifles to their shoulders, looking for targets to shoot.
“Remember what I said,” Ski admonished, and then he launched the kids with a pat on their shoulders.
They moved quickly, just as they’d been instructed, despite the urge to take in all the firepower. Erik in particular thought this was pretty cool.
The car was yet another Toyota, this one a black sedan, and the back door was wide open, guarded by another plainclothes soldier who seemed nervous and intent on looking at everything but them. Kimberly let her brother go first, and then ducked into the backseat behind him. Her knees had barely hit the seat cushion before the door was slammed shut behind them and they pulled away from the curb in a hurry.
“Stay low,” the driver said. Maybe it was the only words they’d been taught, Kimberly thought.
“Do you know where we’re going?” Erik asked the driver.
The soldier behind the wheel shifted his gaze into the rearview mirror.“No, sir, I’m sorry I don’t. I only know where I’m going. And when we get there, I want you to do exactly as I say, all right?”
BOOK: Six Minutes To Freedom
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