Breakout: A Heart-Pounding Lex Harper Thriller

by Stephen Leather

  Ricardo led them at a run through the warren of passageways and courtyards back towards the main gates. Harper then discovered that in order to reclaim his passport from the guards, despite having already paid them to get into the prison a further payment ‘Una punta, por favor’ - a tip - would be necessary to get them out again. Harper wasn’t inclined to argue on this occasion, so he handed over a further $50 and they were then ushered out of the gates. They pushed their way through the crowds clustered around the prison entrance and hurried away.

  CHAPTER 13

  Once safely away from the prison, they stopped at a cafe in a nearby square, ordered some coffee and then sat down to discuss their options.‘So,’ Harper said. ‘How are we going to get Scouse out of there?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Ricardo said. ‘Usually you can free someone either by paying his bail or bribing the guards - it comes to pretty much the same thing in the end. Either way you go free, and the guards are usually cheaper than the lawyers and more likely to keep their end of a deal. However, with Scouse it’s going to be more complicated. He may be sick, he probably has no money, no food, and maybe not even any clothes, and he will have been badly treated just because he’s a gringo and the prisoners, including Don Lorenzo, will think he’s either an informer, a cop or a DEA man. So they’re certainly not going to allow us to just walk him out of here.’

  ‘It may be worse even than that,’ Lupa said ‘Do you remember what I told you about sacrifices to Pachamama: llama foetuses, llama carcasses and maybe human sacrifices too? Homeless people, drug addicts and borrachos - drunks - would be potential victims of that, but the other source would be the jail. The lowest rank of inmates - men with no money, no food, no clothes, nothing - wouldn’t be missed by anyone if they went missing. And, if you were building something big, an apartment block, a narco trafficker’s mansion, or a hotel like that site we passed on our way here, a gringo - a Westerner - might be seen as an even more valuable gift to the gods. So perhaps he is being held to sell as a human sacrifice.’

  Harper frowned. ‘It still sounds insane to me but it would explain why he’s being guarded so tightly and why everyone has been at pains to deny all knowledge of him. So we’d better get him out of there and quick. Who holds the key to those punishment cells?’

  Ricardo looked blank. ‘That I don’t know. The guards or the chief warden I suppose.’

  ‘In any case we can’t rely on being able to get hold of the keys, so we need to make plans to bust Scouse out of there.’ He thought for a minute. ‘We could use explosives to blow our way into the prison - I could make a frame-charge and do a much better job than those bunglers who killed themselves trying to blow a hole in the walls - but it would bring every guard running, all guns blazing, and I’m very doubtful we’d have enough time to get Scouse out of his cell and back through the wall. That’s assuming we could avoid or neutralise the guards in the watch-towers, who would otherwise have a clear shot at us.’ He paused. ‘So we need to find another way to spring him, and that means starting from inside the jail, though we’re still going to need weapons and probably explosives.’

  Ricardo shook his head. ‘But I’ve already told you, we’re not going to be able to get guns or bombs past the guards on the gate.’

  ‘So you did, but I think we can get most of what we need in there, and the other stuff can be disguised, so it seems harmless.’ He began writing in his small notebook. ‘We have to split up for a while. Lupa, you need to go shopping for me.’ He tore a page from his notebook and handed it to her. ‘I need a roll of gaffer tape, a pair of scissors, a razor, soap, a towel, make-up, hair dye - my colour - plenty of deodorant, a black marker pen, some vaseline and a packet of condoms.’

  ‘Why do we need all this stuff anyway?’

  He just gave an enigmatic smile. ‘You’ll see. Now Ricardo, while she’s doing that, I’m going to need you to get me some sulphur. We can’t make it in San Pedro, and I don’t know if you can buy it in La Paz, but you can find it around any hot spring or lava flow - it’s bright yellow, so you can’t really miss it or mistake it for anything else. Since the western range of the Andes is pretty much one continuous volcano, it shouldn’t be hard to get some, should it? Just take the car, drive up into the mountains and head for the nearest plume of smoke and steam and you should be in business.’

  Ricardo’s expression was puzzled but he just said ‘So how much do you need?’

  Harper did a quick mental calculation. ‘A couple of kilos should be enough. That’ll probably take you a few hours, so let’s RV back at the hotel this evening, grab some food and sleep, and then go back into the prison first thing tomorrow morning, as soon as they unlock the gates for the day.’

  He gave them both some money and while they disappeared to carry out their tasks, he went to a flight centre and bought an open ticket from La Paz to London via Miami, using the name on one of his false passports. He then went back to the hotel and stashed the sat phone, some of the money, the air ticket, his passport and the Colt .45 in the hotel room, sticking the packet containing them to the underside of the wardrobe. An expert searcher from one of the intelligence agencies would find them soon enough, but the average sneak thief would almost certainly miss them.

  Lupa returned within a couple of hours, bringing the shopping with her. ‘Good work,’ he said. ‘You might as well keep most of it with you, because there’s more chance of you taking it into the prison unchallenged than me, but give me the condoms, because I’ll need them before we go in tomorrow.’

  By the time Ricardo eventually returned, Harper and Lupa were sitting at a street café, eating their evening meal. Ricardo dumped a bagful of yellow powder down on the table and slumped into a chair. His clothes, face and hair were covered in yellow dust, streaked where trickles of sweat had run down his forehead, and he gave Harper a baleful stare. ‘“Get some sulphur,” the man said, but he forgot to mention that I’d have to climb a mountain to get it.’

  Harper smiled. ‘Sorry Ricardo, I sort of assumed you’d know that volcanoes tend to be quite high and pointy. But let me get you a beer so you can wash the dust away and then you can tell us all about it.’

  Lupa peered into the bag. ‘It’s strange stuff, isn’t it? So how are we going to get it into San Pedro?’

  ‘Well, we could bribe the guards,’ Harper said, ‘but we don’t want to be answering any questions about what we’re planning to do with a couple of kilos of sulphur, so it’s probably better to hide it in something.’ He glanced at a couple of the market stalls that were still trading on the far side of the street, one selling sweets and cigarettes, the other fruit and vegetables. ‘We should be able to find something there.’ He sauntered across the street and came back a few moments later with a bag full of pineapples. ‘These’ll do it,’ he said.

  ‘Pineapples?’

  ‘Sure. We’ll cut the bottoms out of as many as we need and hollow them out. We can seal the sulphur in plastic bags and put them inside, then reattach the bottoms of the pineapples, using a needle and thread or wooden pins to hold them in place. We’ll leave a couple of untouched pineapples on top but,’ he winked at Lupa, ‘if you wear something low-cut, I’m betting the guards won’t even look at the pineapples! But if things do get awkward, just tell them you’re Don Lorenzo’s new girlfriend and I’m guessing they’ll back off very quickly.’

  After they’d eaten, he ran through the outlines of his plan with them. ‘We need to rent one of the cells,’ he said. ‘Ricardo, that’ll be your job obviously. The nearer to the punishment block the better, but we’ll make do with whatever there is.’

  ‘We’re not planning to stay in there, are we?’ he said.

  ‘No longer than necessary, but we need somewhere to sort out Scouse before we get him out of the prison, and it’ll be handy to have a base of sorts, both so we can work undisturbed and so we won’t be surrounded by Don Lorenzo’s gorillas coming at us from all directions if things turn ugly… and trust me, they will.’
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  ‘About that,’ Ricardo said. ‘I’m not frightened of a fight, but his guys are all murderers doing thirty year sentences. One more killing won’t bother them at all.’

  Harper held up his hand. ‘Then we’ll have to make sure they don’t get the opportunity, won’t we? But don’t worry, if any of them get in our way, I’ll be the one taking them on. I’ll need you to watch my back but that’s it. This is my battle - well it’s Scouse’s really, but I’m fighting it for him. Okay?’ He paused. ‘Now, like I said, we need to rent a cell. Get it by the day if you can but if you have to pay for a week or a month, that’s not a problem because as you know…’ He smiled. ‘We’ve got plenty of money in a safe place.’

  ‘So what is the plan?’ Lupa said.

  ‘The plan is to keep a discreet watch on the punishment cells for 48 hours or so, as long as it takes to get a handle on the routine of the guards and Don Lorenzo’s thugs. Once we’ve got that, we can work out the best time to spring Scouse, but we will probably need at least a couple of hours and maybe more than that, between getting him out of the cell and smuggling him out of the prison.’

  ‘And how do you propose to do that?’

  He gave a broad smile. ‘Straight out of the front gate. The time we spend taking turns to carry out surveillance of the punishment cells won’t be wasted because while one of us is doing that, the others will have a little basic chemistry to do.’

  When they went back to the hotel, Lupa borrowed a needle and thread from the owner, while Harper and Ricardo hollowed out the pineapples, and once they were put back together, it would have taken a keen eye to spot that they’d been tampered with.

  They headed back to the prison the next morning. Just before they set off from the hotel, Harper carefully rolled up most of his remaining US dollars into a tight roll, unwrapped one of the condoms and slid the roll of notes inside it. He looked up to see Lupa watching him, intrigued. ‘Can you give me a minute, you two? I need to stash these where the sun doesn’t shine, and it isn’t really a spectator sport.’

  ‘Right,’ Lupa said. ‘Now I understand what the condoms were for. I was wondering.’ She grinned. ‘We’ll wait downstairs.’

  Harper joined them and they walked through the city to the prison. The gates had just been opened but already a queue of people, mostly women, were filing through, laden with food and all sorts of other merchandise. Each of them presented their bags to the guards for a cursory inspection, paid a few Bolivianos or dollars in bribes and was then waved through. ‘You go through separately, Lupa,’ Harper said. ‘They’ll be less likely to search you if you’re not with me.’

  He waited as Lupa made her way through, smiling and flirting with the guards, who barely glanced at the bags she was carrying. She paid the modest bribe they charged her without complaint - Bolivian women paid a lot less than men and especially foreigners to enter San Pedro - then stood well back from the gates, waiting as first Ricardo and then Harper made their way through.

  As on the previous day, Harper and Ricardo both had to pay $50 to the guards and to the chief warden, surrender Harper’s fake passport and have a number inscribed on their forearms before they were allowed to proceed. Fernandez was once more staring at a television showing one of the previous day’s Spanish football matches as they were ushered into his office. ‘Back so soon, gringo?’ he said. ‘Perhaps we should arrange for you to stay here permanently, seeing you like it so much.’

  ‘Kind of you to offer,’ Harper said, with equal sarcasm. ‘But I don’t think I’d ever like it quite enough for that.’

  The chief warden had already lost interest and resumed staring at the television. Harper and Ricardo rejoined Lupa in the courtyard. ‘No problems with the pineapples?’ Harper said to her.

  She laughed. ‘No, they were too busy trying to look down my cleavage to worry too much about anything else.’

  They made their way through the prison to the poorer sections at the rear, close to the punishment cells where Scouse was being held. There was a spare cell in one of the one-star sections, left empty after its previous inhabitant died. ‘And for once it was from natural causes,’ Ricardo said.

  ‘What do you know?’ Harper said. ‘Miracles do happen, even in San Pedro.’

  Ricardo went off to find the boss of the section who was now the notional owner of the cell and, using a few more of Harper’s dollars, managed to rent it. ‘Sorry, he made me pay a month’s rent,’ he said when he returned, ‘twenty dollars’.

  ‘No problem,’ Harper said. ‘It’s a bargain.’ He looked the cell over. There were two narrow beds, a small table and a couple of chairs, a stove, fuelled by a gas bottle, and a sink in one corner. ‘A couple of beds - just right, because one of us is always going to have to be awake and on watch.’ He tested the door. It was solid hardwood and there were three locks on the inside. ‘You did well to get this, it’s strong and gives us good security.’

  Ricardo nodded. ‘A bent politician used to have this cell when I was in here. He’d been running a scam that stole the savings of thousands of Bolivians, and blew most of it on supercars, casinos, fine wines, prostitutes and gambling in casinos. A few of the prisoners had relatives who’d been scammed by him, so he wasn’t expected to survive even one night in here, but he was shrewd enough to realise the danger he was in and took steps to protect himself. He paid a prisoner who was a safe-cracker to fit secure locks to the cell door and then locked himself in. He stayed there for days while the other prisoners yelled threats and curses at him through the door but eventually he paid Don Lorenzo enough to be under his protection, and after that no one dared touch him.’

  ‘Okay,’ Harper said. ‘This will do nicely. Now let’s get to work. We’ll take the surveillance of the punishment cells in four-hour shifts. We don’t need an actual sight of the cells themselves, we just need to be able to watch the passage leading to them, so we can see when people come and go, and we can do it from the café, or one of the benches in the courtyard during the day. At night we can keep watch from the doorway here. If we leave the lights off and the door ajar, we can spot anyone passing by, without showing ourselves. We need to record the times when anyone - guards, thugs, or anyone else - comes and goes. Lupa, you take the first shift.’ He handed her a few Bolivianos and a notebook and pen. ‘Buy yourself a beer or a coffee and keep your eyes open.’

  ‘And what are you and Ricardo going to be doing?’

  ‘We’re going to make a start on that simple chemistry, I told you about. Back in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries British people called saltpetre men used to dig up the floors of stables, pig-sties, pigeon cotes, hen-huts and sheep-pens to get what was called “black earth” - full of urine and manure. They’d soak it to leach all the nitrates out of it then boil it in lead or copper vats to evaporate the liquid. The crystals that were left behind when all the liquid had boiled off were saltpetre, also known as nitrate, one of the three ingredients you need to make gunpowder. Mix 75 per cent saltpetre with 15 per cent charcoal and 10 per cent of the sulphur you got for me from the Andes, Ricardo, and hey presto! You’ve got black powder, the gunpowder that the Chinese invented and that was used in guns and explosives for a thousand years.

  Human piss works just as well as animal. So we could dig up an earth-floored latrine, but it’ll be much easier to just scoop piss out of the concrete trough in the urinal. We could evaporate it in the sun but, since we don’t have much time, we’ll boil it up. That gives us our saltpetre. Charcoal is obviously easy to make, you can light a wood fire, cover it to block out the air so it smoulders rather than burns, and you’ve got charcoal, but since the blacksmith uses it in his forge, it’ll be quicker and easier to buy some from him.’

  As Lupa headed for the café in the courtyard, Harper turned to Ricardo. ‘I need to go and see the guy at the forge,’ he said, ‘so I’m afraid that means you get the shitty end of the stick - quite literally in this case. I need you to get the biggest pan you can find in the kitchens, pay wh
atever you need to buy or borrow it, and then - here comes the hard part - I want you to fill it with piss from the trough in the latrine.’

  ‘You’re joking.’

  ‘I’m afraid not. Even worse, we’re then going to start boiling it up, so you’ll need to make sure there’s enough gas in that cylinder and buy some more if not. The stench will be absolutely terrible while we’re doing it, but it has to be done. That will give us one of the ingredients we need. Those pineapples that Lupa brought in contain another - the sulphur you got from the mountains - and I’ll be getting the third and last one - the charcoal - from the forge.’

  Leaving Ricardo still shaking his head in disbelief, Harper went straight to the forge and spoke to the blacksmith. ‘You speak English, don’t you?’ he said.

  ‘A little.’

  ‘Good. I need to buy two things from you. I want to buy some of your charcoal - a couple of kilos will be enough - and I need you to make me a knife.’

  ‘Sure, how big?’

  ‘Well, you don’t want to take a penknife to a knife fight, do you? So I need something I can conceal but which is big enough to give me an edge - in both senses of the word - if I have to use it. Let’s say this big,’ he said to the blacksmith, holding his hands almost the width of his shoulders apart.

  ‘Okay, I’m busy now, maybe tomorrow.’

  Harper shook his head and held up a $50 bill. ‘Are you this busy?’

  ‘Give me an hour,’ the blacksmith said, already reaching for a bar of scrap metal and signalling to his cell-mate to start pumping the bellows.

  ‘And the charcoal?’ Harper said.

  The blacksmith just jerked his head towards the sacks in the corner. ‘Help yourself.’

  When Harper came back an hour later, the blacksmith was just finishing working on the blade of a knife that was about a foot long. He repeatedly heated it and then plunged it into a bucket of water, sending clouds of steam billowing out of the door. ‘That hardens it,’ he said, ‘now it needs to be tempered - heated again, and then cooled more slowly.’