Read Six Minutes To Freedom Online
Authors: John Gilstrap,Kurt Muse
Six Minutes To Freedom (9 page)
9
Marcos Ostrander sat quietly in a chair off to the side of Mansfield’s desk while the major tried to talk sense into Charlie and Peggy Muse.
“This is ridiculous,” Charlie said for the dozenth time. “This is my home. I have a business here. I can’t just go into hiding somewhere.”
“I’m afraid you don’t have a choice, sir,” Mansfield said in a tone that was at once firm and respectful. “In a few minutes, or a few hours, when you step outside this office, I won’t be able to protect you. And without protection, you will undoubtedly be arrested.”
“On what charge? I’ve done nothing wrong. We still have laws in this country. We still have attorneys.”
Marcos saw the statement as his opportunity to say something. “I
am
an attorney,” he said. “And with all respect, the Panama you describeno longer exists. It’s no longer about what you did or did not do. Right now, it’s about using you against your son, and when they’re done doing that, they’ll charge you with whatever they want and manufacturethe appropriate evidence to convict you. All it takes is a wink and a nod from General Noriega, and a lengthy sentence is guaranteed.”
am
an attorney,” he said. “And with all respect, the Panama you describeno longer exists. It’s no longer about what you did or did not do. Right now, it’s about using you against your son, and when they’re done doing that, they’ll charge you with whatever they want and manufacturethe appropriate evidence to convict you. All it takes is a wink and a nod from General Noriega, and a lengthy sentence is guaranteed.”
As hard as Major Mansfield was working to be diplomatic, Marcos doubled the effort to be blunt, and the effect on his guests was immediateand obvious. Peggy blanched with fear as Charlie reddened with rage.
“Use me against my son?” Charlie seethed, saying the words as if they tasted like betrayal. “What exactly has he done?”
Marcos kept the eye contact constant and direct as he said, “I can’t tell you. But when General Noriega finds out the full scope of it, he’s going to be very angry. He’ll move heaven and earth to get even. And he’ll start with you.” There. He couldn’t put it more plainly than that.
“What about our daughter?” Peggy asked. “And her husband?”
This was news to Marcos. He shot a look to Mansfield, who instantlysnatched up the phone.
Before dialing, Mansfield pointed to another phone on another desk. “Mrs. Muse, I wonder if you could do me a favor and use that phone over there to call your daughter and tell her and her husband—what’s his name?”
“David,” Peggy said. “Carol and David Skinner.”
Mansfield nodded. “Tell Carol and David Skinner to expect some visitors very shortly.”
“What kind of visitors?” David asked. Joey had joined them in the livingroom as they all tried to make sense out of the night.
Carol shook her head. “Nana couldn’t say.
Wouldn’t
say on the phone.”
Wouldn’t
say on the phone.”
“What are these visitors coming to do?”
“She wouldn’t say that, either, other than to say that we should do whatever they say. David, I’m frightened.”
He gathered his wife into his arms gently and held her. “There’s nothing to be frightened of,” he assured. “We’ve done nothing wrong.”
Even though they were expecting it, the knock at the door still startledthem. Perhaps it was the lightness of it—just a tiny rap to let them know it was time to open the door, even as the arrival was kept secret from the neighbors.
Carol could not have described who she expected to see when she opened the front door, but she knew without doubt that this young American with scruffy hair and rumpled clothes was not it. He greeted her with a big smile. “Hi,” he said. “We’re the good guys. I think you’re expecting us.”
“Us?” David said cautiously. “There’s only one of you.”
As if on cue, another one stepped into view. They could have been roommates at Berkeley. “The back is clear,” the second one said. Neithermade an effort to introduce himself.
“May we come in please?” the first one said.
“Who are you?” David pressed. “Who do you work for?”
The first visitor nodded toward the foyer. “Inside,” he said again. “Please.”
Carol pulled David off with a gentle hand on his forearm.
“Thank you,” the visitors said together. They stepped inside and closed the door. Once inside, they zeroed directly in on Joey, who couldn’t have been more than five years younger than they. “Hi there,” said the one among them who seemed destined to do all the talking. His smile had the light of an incandescent bulb. He extended his hand to Joey and said, “I’m Ski. This is John. Who are you?”
Joey blushed and bubbled, “I’m Joey Skinner.”
“So there’s three of you,” John said. The two exchanged a glance that Carol and David didn’t quite know how to interpret.
“All right then,” Ski said, clasping his hands together with a pop. As if as an afterthought, he whirled quickly to offer his hand to Joey’s parents as well. “You’re Carol and David, I presume,” he said.
“We are indeed,” David said.
“Australia?” Ski asked, noting the accent.
“England.”
“Okay, then.” As if a switch had been flipped, Ski turned seamlessly from pleasantries to business. “Here’s the deal, guys. John and I are here to take you to safety.”
David recoiled at the thought. “Whose safety?”
“Yours,” Ski said. “Your whole family. Everybody else is at ... is safe. You’re the last who are not, and I don’t know when the PDF is going to realize that they’ve missed you.”
“So you’re suggesting we leave?” David said.
“I’m here to offer that option, yes sir.”
“But this is my home. We have business here. We have our lives here.”
Ski looked to John for assistance. “We can’t speak to your home or your business, Mr. Skinner, but that last part about your lives is what’s in play. We’ve been told that this is a one-of-a-kind offer. You don’t have to accept, but if you turn us down, there won’t be another opportunity.”
Carol was stunned, speechless.
Ski sighed. “I understand this is difficult and frightening, but sometimeschoices have to be made quickly, and I’m afraid this is one of those times.”
“But we don’t even know what you’re proposing,” David protested.“Beyond leaving with you. What’s next?”
Ski shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know, or you won’t tell us?” Carol prodded.
“Does it matter? Either way, the sun’s going to be up soon, and when daylight arrives, options start to shut down. I’ve got a car outside.Are you going to use it or not?”
A long moment passed as the Skinners looked to each other for a definitive answer. Finally, it was Joey who said, “We don’t really have a choice, do we? If we go now, we can always change our minds later. But if we don’t ...” She didn’t finish the sentence.
Ski forged ahead with the plan as if he’d heard someone agree. “Here’s what we do, okay? We go one at a time. We’ll start with John, who will just wander out to the car, and then Joey will be next, followedby Carol, David, and, finally, me. Okay? Any questions?”
They all just stared at him like he’d gone over the edge.
“Okay, that was stupid. Any questions I can answer?” He paused, but it was only for effect. “Okay, then, John, you start.”
The Berkeley Boy nodded his approval that a plan was finally underway,and he slipped out the front door, closing it behind him. Ski watched from the window. After maybe thirty seconds, he apparently liked what he saw and motioned for the next round.
“Okay, Joey, you’re up. Don’t run, don’t make a scene, just go straight to the car.”
Pausing just long enough to shoot a worried glance to her parents, Joey slipped out the door. Another thirty seconds, and then it was Carol’s turn. She was still crying, but in a way that led Ski to believe that maybe she didn’t realize it.
What he saw was the manifestation of fear. Carol was never much for the unknown. She liked her world ordered and organized. This kind of adventure, sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night, not knowing what the future held, was so far off her radar screen as to be in the realm of things never thought of.
Finally, for the next thirty seconds or so, it was just David and Ski alone in the house, and in that time, David realized that it was an opportunityintentionally engineered by the visitor.
“Look Mr. Skinner,” Ski said, his expression suddenly as serious as that of a soldier on a deadly mission, “I don’t know how to soften this, so I’m just going to let you have it, okay? Your family are all Americancitizens, and as such have certain rights for protection under the rules of the Treaty. You’re British and don’t. You’re invited along as a courtesy—as a nod to the head of an otherwise American household. If we get stopped along the way, I will have no authority to protect you from the locals. I will have no choice but to hand you over. Do you understand?”
David stared blankly, stunned by the words he’d just heard and overwhelmed with the sense that all the air had just been sucked out of the room.
Ski gave his best room-lighting smile. “I tell you this just so you know the deal.” He peeked out the window again. “Okay, it’s your turn,” he said.
For Pablo Martinez, it had been another long night on the heels of many other long nights triggered by yet another threat on his life. The difference this time—and it was a
huge
difference—was that this time his family was as involved in the danger as he was.
huge
difference—was that this time his family was as involved in the danger as he was.
As the eastern sky brightened, he fought to keep his anger focused where it belonged—on Manuel Noriega—and not on Kurt, who never did realize the size of the tiger whose tail he took such pleasure in pulling. God knew he’d been warned. Pablo had fought like a banshee to keep Kurt from overcommitting to the cause from which, as an American citizen, he could have walked away at any time, but much like Pablo’s own son, Antonio, Kurt suffered from the curse of youth everywhere: the illusion of immortality. The incompetence with which Noriega had pursued the perpetrators of La Voz had only enabled them further.
As Pablo and Victoria cruised through the night on their way to their daughter’s house in the country, Pablo’s mind was preoccupied with thoughts of his family, of what they must have gone through all these years, and of what lay ahead in the unknown. Their other son, Raul, had been shocked to see his parents standing there outside his apartment at such a ridiculous hour of the morning. Raul, of course, had no idea of what his father had been up to with his involvement in La Voz, and he’d been as shocked as Victoria to learn the details. Dutifulson that he was, he naturally offered his parents asylum at his apartment, which they politely refused. It was too dangerous, Pablo explained, for him to remain in the city, and it would have been foolishto involve Raul so late in the game.
Instead, they would travel to their daughter Maritza’s house, where they would lay low long enough to assess the damage that had been done by Kurt Muse’s arrest. What Pablo had not told his worried son, and what even Victoria did not know, was that one of the illicit transmitters—morespecifically, an illicit television station that the CIA had provided, but which they had yet to use—was in fact nestled in an apartment in Raul’s building. If Pablo were caught there, the link would be made, and their last, tiniest, chance of success would evaporatelike a cup of water in the desert.
“Will the boys be safe?” Victoria asked in the darkness of the Buick.
Pablo nodded thoughtfully. “Raul, certainly, will be fine. He had nothing to do with any of this.”
“But if the PDF connect you with Kurt ...” Her voice trailed off, as if she didn’t want to consider the rest.
“The only way for that connection to be made is for Kurt to tell them what we were doing. He will not.” He said it with finality, as if it were a foregone conclusion.
“You can’t know that,” she said. “No one can know what they might endure under interrogation.”
It was understood without saying that interrogation meant torture, and that more than any other reason defined why Pablo would never let himself be taken. “Kurt is strong,” he said. “He will protect his friends.” Of the two of them in the car, he was not sure whom he was most trying to convince.
For a long moment after that, silence prevailed. Then, Victoria said softly, “And I think Antonio will be fine, too.”
Ah, Antonio. Angry, compulsive, energetic Antonio. The young man who would always be a boy in his father’s mind had fought hard to convince his parents to slip into exile with him, and now that they’d refused, he was really angry.
Of course, to Antonio it was all an adventure, the true initiation into the revolutionary life to which he had so long aspired. Well, God bless him for it. At least he’d be safe in America—safer, anyway, than he’d be remaining here in Panama. No father would ever wish exile on his son, but if it had to come, he couldn’t imagine a better circumstance.
For Pablo, though, none of this had ever been about romance or adventure.For him, it was about preserving an ideal of freedom that he once had known, yet his idealistic son had never tasted. Pablo had absorbedtoo much responsibility to afford the luxury of a romantic view of politics. There was good and there was evil; there was freedom and there was totalitarianism. Those who did not fight for one were doomed to endure the other. Even beyond his role as family patriarch, he was also the general manager of a major insurance company and a powerfulinfluence in both the Rotary, and by extension, in the National Civic Crusade. He shared Antonio’s hatred for Noriega, but Pablo had been around the block enough times and was an old enough hand at political activism to know that the anger had to be spread thicker than that.
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