He clung there for a moment, completing the countdown in his head and listening to the ever-louder hubbub of noise from the main courtyard below as his beggars’ army crowded around the guards. He was already beginning to swing himself up and over the railing as he heard the sound of the first grenade detonating on the roof at the far side of the courtyard.
The guard had his back to him and was unslinging his rifle from his shoulder as he scanned the crowd below for the source of the explosion. Harper saw him stiffen as he identified the target - Ricardo, who was now sending another grenade flying after the first one - but as the guard put the rifle to his shoulder and started to bring it to bear, Harper was already in motion. He covered the two metre gap between them in two strides, smashed his fist against the side of the guard’s head, momentarily stunning him and followed up with a karate chop to the throat. As the guard began to crumple, Harper tore the rifle from his grasp and brought the butt crunching down on the guard’s skull. He then stepped over him to the front of the tower and sighted through the guard’s rifle. It was a .30 Carbine, a vintage weapon, used by the US Army in World War Two. Short, light and with a good rate of fire, it was first issued to US Paratroopers and tank crews, but it had also proved perfect for use in guard towers.
Harper heard a third detonation and the sound of shrapnel rattling across the metal roofing as he squinted through the iron sights of the rifle, aiming at the edge of the other tower. He concentrated until the iron railing was in sharp focus. As the echoes of the last grenade blast ebbed away, the other guard cautiously raised his head. Harper only had to swing the barrel a couple of centimetres to bring the man’s head into line with the round rear sight and the front blade sight, to create the perfect sight picture he had been taught many years ago as a Para on the ranges at Aldershot. He sharpened his focus still more, then exhaled and gently squeezed the trigger. Even as he felt the recoil in his shoulder, he saw the man’s head disappear, replaced by a mist of blood droplets and fragments of bone.
At once he switched his aim to the guards in the courtyard, who were hemmed in by the gates and struggling to hold back the mob pressing in around them. Two of them had already drawn their pistols and one fired a warning shot into the air, hoping to frighten the mob and drive them back, but as the pressure increased, Harper saw the pistol barrel swing down and in that moment he drilled a shot through the guard’s head. Without waiting to see the impact, he swung the sights on to the second guard and shot him too, the bullet’s steep downward trajectory punching a neat hole through his eye and then exiting through the back of his neck.
The beggars army let out a collective roar as they saw their tormentors fall and they overwhelmed the four remaining guards. Only one even managed to draw his weapon - the others were already being punched and kicked to the ground - and before his fumbling fingers could raise it, the pistol was torn from his grasp by the bar-room brawler Harper had put in the front rank, who clubbed the guard with the butt and then shot him through the head at point blank range, spreading his brains all over the ground in front of the gates.
Still holding the rifle, Harper vaulted over the rail, clambered down the tower and ran across the roof, the metal panels rattling underfoot. As he reached the edge, he slung the rifle over his shoulder, swarmed down a drainpipe to the floor of the yard and then ran to join Lupa and Ricardo. The mob was already carrying off the three guards they had overpowered, beating and punching them as they dragged them toward the passage that led to the punishment block and the piscina, where the body of Don Lorenzo still lay on the bottom.
Even if the three men’s fate was to join him there, Harper felt little sympathy for them. They had all brutalised the prisoners who now held them captive, men who had no money, friends or influence to protect them and couldn’t fight back. The guards had forced many of the prisoners’ wives, girlfriends and even children to perform sexual acts in return for access, or simply to prevent further beatings for their men, and they had robbed, extorted bribes and swindled countless others. Now the reckoning was being made.
The remaining guards, off duty or asleep in their dormitory, were rounded up, stripped of their weapons, uniforms and money, and then, after Harper intervened to prevent further drownings, they were force-marched down to the punishment cells or the bare concrete floors that the lowest of the low had been occupying.
Some of the members of Harper’s beggars’ army were trying on the guards’ uniforms, and taking over their weapons and roles. The remaining section bosses within the prison, drawn by the gunshots and general commotion but watching from the safety of the far side of the main courtyard, just shrugged. Don Lorenzo was gone, and the chief warden’s guards had been deposed, but business as usual would soon resume, just with a different bunch of guards to pay off. A few of the other prisoners had taken the opportunity provided by the temporary absence of guards to leave the prison and go back on to the streets. Whether they could survive there for long without falling foul of the police and finding themselves back in San Pedro was not a question that appeared to concern them, any more than it did Harper; they’d been given a chance, whether or not they now took it was up to them.
CHAPTER 17
Only one loose end remained to be tied up: the chief warden, Fernández, was still holed up in his office behind a locked door. Squinting through the keyhole, Harper saw him sitting behind his desk facing the door, with a pistol gripped in his hand and his nightstick still lying across the corner of the desk. Keeping to the side of the doorframe in case Fernández tried to fire through the door, Harper called out to him, making sarcastic use of the word ‘Don’. ‘It’s over for you now, Don Fernández. Your men have all been killed or captured, and you are the only one still holding out. As you’ve no doubt noticed, your phone line’s dead and there won’t be any cavalry riding to your rescue, so you’re on your own.We’ve now got three options. We can simply sit here and starve you out, though with the amount of excess weight you’re carrying, that might be a long process. The second way is to blow the door in or toss a grenade through the window, but both of those will be messy - first for you, and then for us when we have to scrape what’s left of you off the floor, walls and ceilings. So the best option for you and for us, is for you to put that gun down, prise your fat arse off that chair, walk over to the door and unlock it, and then come out with your hands above your head. I’ll give you five minutes to think about it and if you haven’t come out by the end of that time, we’ll be taking option two. Okay?’
There was a long silence from the other side of the door, but then Harper heard the creak of a chair and Fernández’s slow footsteps moving across the office. Harper nodded to Ricardo on the other side of the door. Both of them were now armed, not with their primitive single shot weapons, but with pistols that had been liberated from the guards. They flattened themselves against the wall on either side of the doorway, pistols cocked and pointing at the door. There was a metallic scraping sound as the key was turned and a creak as the door began to open. Fernández then emerged, his pudgy hands held above his head. Harper grabbed him by the arm, swung him around and pushed him, none too gently, face against the wall and held him with a pistol at his neck while Lupa patted him down.
Harper then pulled Fernández’s arms down behind his back and Lupa secured him with a pair of handcuffs that had been liberated from the warden’s own men. They pushed him back into the office, collected his pistol from the desk and then left him standing while the three of them settled themselves in his chairs, with Lupa trying his desk-chair for size and Harper and Ricardo lounging on the greasy sofa, pushed against the wall facing the TV screen, still tuned to Fernández’s favourite sports channel.
‘What do you want from me?’ Fernández said.
Harper shrugged and spread his hands wide. ‘I’m not sure you have anything we want.’
‘There is one thing,’ Lupa said.
Harper raised an eyebrow. ‘Really, what’s that?’
She was
staring at the warden. ‘I’ll be taking over your job, SeñorFernández.’
Harper started to laugh, but was silenced by Lupa’s ferocious glare. ‘Neither I nor Ricardo are going back to the streets, Lex, and having to live hand to mouth. We want to be part of all this now, and in fact more than that, we want to run it. Ricardo will replace Don Lorenzo and take care of the cocaine trade and I’ll be sitting at this desk and running the prison.’
Harper couldn’t hide a smile. ‘I admire your spunk, Lupa, but face it, this isn’t a café or a travel agent, it’s a prison full of desperate men.’
‘Don’t patronise me, Lex. I know that and I can run this place as well as any man. Probably better.’
His smile broadened. ‘No you can’t. I’ve only known you a short while, so you may have hidden depths I don’t know about, but from what I’ve seen of you, you’re not ruthless enough.’
‘Am I not?’ She fixed him with a look, then picked up the nightstick from the desk and smashed the chief warden full in the mouth with it. He collapsed to the floor, spitting blood and broken teeth. Lupa stood over him, spat in his face and said. ‘That’s what you did to Scouse, bastardo, how do you like it? And you know what else? Now that Scouse has gone, those developers will be looking for a new human sacrifice to bury in the foundations of that hotel they’re building. So we’ll get rid of a problem for us and solve one for them. You’re not a gringo, but you are - or at least you were until a few minutes ago - a man of some status. So I think you’ll do nicely.’
She turned to Ricardo. ‘While we’re waiting to make the arrangements, why don’t you take the warden down to the punishment cells? There are still a couple available and from the amount of time he spent down there, beating prisoners, Fernández must really like it there.’
As Ricardo pulled the warden to his feet, kicked him in the backside and pushed him towards the door, Lupa turned to look at Harper. ‘That ruthless enough for you?’
Harper bowed. ‘I take it back, you’re plenty ruthless enough, just as long as you can persuade the other guys to support you.’
They walked back down to the courtyard and she called all the former prisoners together, still looking a little uncomfortable in their new uniforms, let alone their new roles. ‘Oye hombres, any of you object to me taking control of the prison and giving you orders?’
They took in the nightstick she was holding and the glint in her eye and, as one, began to shake their heads. ‘Whatever you say, Boss Lupa,’ one said, and there was a rumble of assent from the others.
‘Bueno,’ she said. ‘So, first job: Four of you lock the gates and mount guard on them. The rest of you get down to the cell we were using, get the gunpowder that’s still there, take it into the yard and set fire to it - it’ll only burn and not blow up provided you don’t compress it first. And now we’ve got the guards’ pistols, we don’t need those single-shot weapons. Gather them all up, take them to the blacksmith and tell him to melt them down. If there are any spare gas cylinders - we used the ones in the cell as flame-throwers - connect them back up to the stove and get a couple of people to clean the cell up, mend the window and repaint the walls; someone will want to make use of it soon enough. Lastly, we need to dispose of the bodies in the piscina. Drain it, get them out, cut them up, bag them and mix them with the garbage. That way they won’t be noticed till the garbage truck reaches the dump and even if they are found when it gets there, enough bodies have already turned up there from the cocaine wars between the gangs, to make another couple not even worth bothering about.’
As they dispersed to carry out their tasks, Harper gave a low whistle. ‘I’m going to have to eat my words, Lupa, you look like you really do have what it takes. But it’s early days yet, are you sure you can keep those guys in line?’
‘Why not Lex? They’ve been lower than the cockroaches all the time they’ve been in here, but now they’re in control of their own destinies. If they’ve got food in their stomachs and money in their pockets - and there’s plenty of that to be made for all of us - why would they risk that just because there’s a woman in charge?’
Harper gave a rueful smile. ‘Okay I’m convinced. You were right and I was wrong. And you know what? Why stop here? Give it a few years and I can even see you as Bolivia’s first woman President.’
She grinned. ‘I don’t think so Lex, even I’m not ruthless enough for that, but this will work just fine for me and Ricardo. I’ll have Fernández’s quarters and Ricardo can move into Don Lorenzo’s very spacious cell and take over as prison boss and, with the help of his Colombian friends on the outside, he’ll have no trouble running San Pedro’s cocaine trade.’ She gave him a sweet smile. ‘You see? Everybody wins.’
‘Well, everybody but Don Lorenzo, Fernández and his guards anyway, and I’m quite relaxed about all of them getting what was coming to them.’ He paused. ‘So, I still owe you both the fee for all your help.’
Lupa held up a hand. ‘Olvídalo - forget it, Lex, you owe us nothing. If it hadn’t have been for you, I’d still be scratching around for translation work in Santa Cruz, and Ricardo would have been street dealing waiting for the next arrest. Now we’re on easy street, so gracias but please, keep your money.’
‘Okay, if you’re sure? Then while you’re settling in to Fernández’s kingdom, I’m going to head back to the hotel, bring Scouse up to date, take off these filthy, stinking rags of his that I’ve been wearing, and have a very long and hot shower. Then I’m going to have some food and a couple of very big drinks - and if you’re confident about leaving your posts unattended, you’re very welcome to come and join me for that - and then tomorrow we’ll be flying out.’
Harper found Ricardo already supervising cocaine production in the prison factory. He broke off from what he was doing to give Harper a hug. ‘What can I say, Lex, we owe everything to you. We couldn’t even have dreamed about doing this, without you.’
‘The feeling’s mutual, Ricardo. I couldn’t have got Scouse out, let alone myself, without your help. And taking down some seriously evil people, well, that was just a very welcome bonus.’ He smiled, ‘Take good care of Fernández, won’t you?’
Ricardo laughed. ‘Don’t worry, he’s going to be playing a big part in La Paz’s new hotel development.’
Harper headed for the gates, saying a few goodbyes along the way, and once out of the prison, he went straight back to the hotel, ignoring the disapproving looks from the hotel staff and guests at the filthy rags he was wearing. He went to his room, and first checked the tells he had left to show if intruders had been searching it, but while Scouse had obviously been in to take the money and ticket that Harper had left him, nothing else had been disturbed and his fake documents, the rest of the money, the sat-phone he’d got from Standish from Risk Reduction, and the Colt .45 Lupa had obtained for him were still where he had left them.
He put the Colt on the bedside table and then called Scouse on the room phone. He was on the floor below Harper’s. Harper went down and knocked on his door. Scouse opened it almost immediately and grabbed Lex in a punishing bearhug. ‘I owe you, mate,’ said Scouse.
‘Damn right you do,’ said Harper. ‘But you’re out, that’s all that matters.’
Scouse was looking semi-human again. He looked like he’d already put on a few pounds, though that was scarcely surprising since, as he said to Harper, ‘To be honest, mate, I’ve not stopped eating since I got out of San Pedro.’ He’d had some temporary repairs to his teeth as well, though until he had them replaced with crowns, every time he looked in the mirror, the row of broken stumps would be a reminder of his time in San Pedro.
‘Right mate, we’re going to stay put here tonight but before first light tomorrow morning we’re going to head out of here,’ Harper told him. ‘I’m going to clean up, shower and get some shut-eye. This evening we’ll have something to eat and drink and then we’re getting out of La Paz before dawn. So don’t leave the hotel until I call you later on and if you must hit the bar d
ownstairs, don’t get pissed, okay?’
Scouse gave him another brutal bearhug and Harper went back to his own room. He stripped off his stinking clothes and dumped them into a laundry bag, knotted the top and stashed it at the back of the wardrobe. He then showered, shaved, and stretched out on the bed to catch up on some sleep. In the early evening, he took another shower and put on some clean clothes, then picked up the sat phone and dialled the number that the Texan pilot, Randy, had given him. He left a message with the woman who answered the phone and within ten minutes Randy had called him back.
‘Lex? I wasn’t really expecting to hear from you again and certainly not so soon.’
‘Me neither, but shit happens and I need a flight out of La Paz tomorrow. Can do?’
‘Sure, if the price is right.’
‘Okay. Two passengers this time, pick up at the same place you dropped us off, as early as you can manage in the morning, and then fly us across the border. It doesn’t really matter which: Peru, Argentina or Chile.’
‘Not Brazil?’
‘No, that might not be the wisest move.’
‘Okay. Peru would probably be the best bet then. It’s a shorter hop and their border security and immigration/emigration procedures are a lot less stringent than Argentina or Chile, so if you were trying to exit from there without having a stamp to show you’d legally entered the country, Peru would be your best shot. I could drop you close to one of the regional airports, probably Juliaca, because they get a lot of tourist flights bringing Americans to gaze at Lake Titicaca, so yet another gringo won’t attract any particular attention.’
Breakout: A Heart-Pounding Lex Harper Thriller Page 16