by Mark Greaney
When Court was told about the impending journey north to the work camps, he stunned his interrogators.
“Okay, I’m done with this shit. I’ll give you the names of my contacts in Vientiane, bank account numbers, tell you where we pick up the poppy and how we get it over the Mekong into Thailand.”
Both men’s eyes turned away from the Muay Lao match on the TV and locked on the gaunt, sweat-soaked man sitting in front of them.
“Yes. You talk now!” ordered the senior man.
“No. It’s better I write it all down. Easier for you to understand.”
Both men nodded. “Yes.”
“But I want some things from you.”
“What you want?” Fresh suspicion dulled the pleased expression on the men’s faces.
“My friend is hurt. I want his head bandaged. Carefully bandaged.”
The senior man waved a hand through the air. “No problem.”
“I want a warm, dry blanket. I want a bottle of that water you guys are drinking.” He pointed to a plastic two-liter jug on the table. Again, the interrogators nodded. “What else?”
“I guess some paper and something to write with would be good.”
* * *
The guards bandaged Eddie with Court lying nearby in the cell and admonishing them with his frail voice and weak gestures, ordering them to use more gauze and more tape. At first Gamble tried to push them away, insisting that the knot on his head did not need to be mummified in order to heal. But Court was adamant, and finally Eddie relented and let Court take charge of his medical care.
Court had his pad and his pen and a fresh wool blanket, and he wrote down notes throughout the afternoon and evening. During the night he opened the bottle and drank most of the clean water himself, only passing the last few swigs over to the man who’d been keeping him alive. Eddie took it and polished it off greedily, but only after Court assured him he’d had all he wanted.
When the daily ration was brought the next morning, Court surprised Eddie. “I’m taking all your food.”
“No, I’m giving you half. Holding your sweaty ass up over the shitter burns a lot of calories, amigo.”
“Look, I need some extra strength today.” Court pulled both tin plates over in front of him as he spoke.
“What for? What’s going to happen?”
“If it doesn’t work out, I’d rather you didn’t know. It might be better for you that way.”
Eddie looked worried. “C’mon, Sally. You aren’t in any condition to try anything. Let me talk to the guards today; if they think you are giving up some intel and I offer up some disinformation, then maybe they’ll come through with that medicine you need.”
“No… This isn’t about me getting medicine. It’s about getting the hell out of here.” Court began eating from both plates. Gamble looked on hungrily. Between bites of turnip and slurps of bone broth, Court said, “Oh yeah, one more thing. I need all your bandages.”
Slowly, with no idea what the hell was going on, Eddie Gamble took the gauze and the tape from his head and handed it over.
Court spent the next half hour lying on his side under his blanket, his back to his fellow prisoner. Eddie asked over and over what was going to happen, but his cellmate would not answer.
The guards came to take Eddie to his interrogation. As they left, Court called out. “Tell them that I need another pen. This one ran out of ink. If they bring it before I go up, then I’ll have my list ready.”
Eddie looked at him a long time before relaying the message. It was obvious that he could tell something was about to go down, and he was more worried than excited.
When the door shut on Eddie and the two guards, Court used all the strength the bottle of clean water and two full meals had given him to crawl over to the cell door. He pulled out the pen he’d been given the day before, cracked it open, then removed the ink reservoir from the plastic grip. He reached through the bars, slid the ball of the pen into the lock, and felt his way through the tumblers with a shaky but practiced hand. He’d played with the lock for several days running while Eddie slept, had used lengths of straw to feel into its recesses to reveal its secrets. Using one of the broken plastic pieces as a tension wrench, he turned the cylinder. He’d accomplished this feat literally thousands of times in his training at the CIA’s Autonomous Asset Development Program in Harvey Point, North Carolina, and this lock was actually much easier to defeat than most of the ones he’d been trained on.
The cell door popped open in seconds.
TEN
Court walked with Elena for nearly a mile through San Blas; the pregnant woman looked perfectly comfortable with the effort, though sweat covered her light brown skin. They passed roadside restaurants, the bus station; they strolled past stray dogs sleeping in the town square, chickens pecking for bugs in a garbage dump. Turning south, Elena went through an open-air vegetable market and bought a few bags of yams and mangoes. Court had questions for her; he could not help it. He learned that she was from Guadalajara, had met Eddie when he was a DEA agent working there, and they’d married shortly before he re-emigrated to Mexico to join the Policía Federal five years earlier. They’d bought a house in San Blas to be near his family, as she had no close relatives of her own.
Court and Elena left the market, turned down a dirty narrow street called Calle de Canalizo. Though unpaved, it was lined with midsized gated properties, and after a few minutes of strolling, Elena stepped through an open gate. Court followed her up a short driveway towards a two-story gray cinderblock home surrounded by bougainvillea and vine. Eddie’s house. Dogs ran and played in the front garden amidst several locals; policemen and policewomen wearing yellow polo shirts and batons on their belts strolled around the driveway and the front yard.
A big, silver Ford F-350 Super Duty pickup sat in the driveway. It was decked out with tinted windows, a rack of floodlights, a big winch in front, chrome all over, and a weathered U.S. Navy sticker on the back window. Eddie’s truck, Court had no doubt. He remembered Gamble talking about his love of big Ford pickups, and seeing the idle vehicle made Court sad.
Elena led him inside the plain dwelling. In the front family room a dozen people stood and sat, chatting together as loud accordion music played from a boom box on the floor. Court stood behind Elena as she greeted an older couple; she then introduced them as her husband’s parents, Ernesto and Luz. They spoke no English, so Court introduced himself in Spanish as an old friend of their son from the United States.
Luz Gamboa was in her sixties, short and thick with a wide face that showed at once a friendly smile and a deep sadness in her eyes. Her husband was taller and thinner, maybe five years older, with deep, dark creases covering his face. A lifetime on a small fishing boat in the Pacific Ocean with the wind and sun had left salt-etched evidence of the years and the sea on his skin. He seemed a little suspicious of the American standing in his dead son’s family room, but the two men shook hands and Ernesto welcomed “Jose” to San Blas.
Elena handed the produce she’d bought in the market to a boy of sixteen, a nephew of Eduardo’s, she said as an introduction, and the boy disappeared towards the back of the simply furnished but spacious house. Then the pregnant woman took the American around, introducing him to aunts and uncles of Eduardo, a few more nephews and a niece, two brothers, and several friends from the area.
Cesar Gamboa, one of Eddie’s uncles, put a cold bottle of Pacifico beer in Court’s hand and exchanged pleasantries with the American in the hallway at the back of the house, while Elena disappeared to greet more guests. As they talked, Court looked around at the pictures in the hall. The walls were adorned with Eddie and Elena’s wedding photos. Court remembered that wide grin from Laos — back then he found it amazing that the guy could have smiled at a time like that. There were also several pictures of Eddie with a white-haired American man on a fishing boat. Together they held a massive marlin in one picture. Suntans, Ray-Bans, and smiles covered their faces.
The
n Gentry scanned the framed pictures of a much younger Eddie with his SEAL team. The men posed with their weapons. Eddie looked impossibly young and fit, and though the rest of the men with him were a head taller than the Mexican American, Eddie Gamble looked comfortable and “in charge.”
Elena tapped Court on his shoulder from behind. Court turned around to find himself standing in front of the old man he’d just seen in the picture with Eddie and the marlin. He was short, seventy or so, and he wore a blue U.S. Navy cap.
Fuck, thought Court. A gringo.
Elena spoke in English. “Jose, I would like to present you to one of Eddie’s dear friends, Capitán Chuck.”
“Chuck Cullen, United States Navy, retired,” the old man said as they shook hands. His grip was long and fierce in an obvious attempt to intimidate; his eyes were anything but trusting. He was old, but he was trim and fit, and he sure looked like he took damn good care of himself.
Elena continued speaking, perhaps sensing an initial mistrust between the two men. “Jose was a friend of Eduardo’s.”
Cullen’s craggy suntanned face wrinkled in a sour smile. “Well, any friend of Eddie’s is a friend of mine,” Cullen said, but Court could tell he didn’t mean it. Gentry considered his own appearance, knew he looked too much like the roadie of a heavy metal band to garner the respect of a seventyish ex — naval officer. With the overt suspicion on display now, Cullen asked, “How exactly did you know Eddie?”
“I met him when he was in the DEA.”
“So, you are DEA, or did he arrest you once?” Cullen asked with a smile as if it were a joke, but Gentry sensed the old man considered the “long hair” in front of him to be a human being worthy of suspicion. Cullen began to say something else, no doubt another chiding remark. But Elena returned and interrupted the conversation.
“I almost forgot. Come, Joe. We have more people to meet. You two can talk at dinner.”
It was a short walk down the narrow hallway to the kitchen. Here a half dozen women of various ages prepared the meal; they used every possible flat surface in the small room to slice fruits and vegetables, ice down beer, stir large pots of soups and rice, and butter bread fresh from the oven. Two were introduced as Eddie’s aunts, another as a sister-in-law.
At the sink a woman with short black hair washed sweet potatoes; she wore an apron and her back was to Court and Elena, but she turned to ask Eddie’s wife a question.
Court’s eyes locked on hers, and he found himself unable to pry them away. She was beautiful, extraordinarily so, but not like Elena. She was smaller, with café au lait skin that was a bit darker than that of Eddie’s wife. Her sparkling brown eyes were massive, half-hidden under bangs that she blew out of the way as she toweled off her hands. She was almost boyish in frame and mannerism, and her shoulders showed hints of muscularity under her simple white blouse, which had a hand-sewn floral print.
Elena said, “This is Joe from los Estados Unidos. Joe, this is—”
Court finished the sentence. “Eddie’s little sister. Lorita,” he said it softly, reverently. He could see a lot of his old friend in her. In a flood of memories the weeks in the shit-splattered Laotian cell came back to him. Eddie had spoken of her nonstop, and his one regret about running to America had been leaving the little girl behind. He sent most of his meager enlisted-man’s pay back home, supporting his parents and sister from afar, but it was painfully clear that he felt he’d abandoned the kid by leaving her behind here in San Blas.
Lorita finished wiping her hands on a rag and stepped forward; she shook Court’s hand, and he felt her eyes on him. He mumbled something in Spanish about being an old friend of her brother’s. His words sounded stupid to him.
She spoke to him in English. “No one calls me Lorita for long time. I’m Laura. It is a pleasure to meet you.”
“Igualmente.” Court said likewise in Spanish, indicating to her she could continue in her mother tongue if she wished.
“You were with Eduardo in the Navy?” she asked, but quickly Elena stepped in.
“He can’t talk about how he knows Eduardo. Some kind of secret mission, I think.” She winked at Court. There was sadness in her eyes but a conspiratorial playfulness as well.
Court nodded, and said, “It was a while ago. He was a great guy.”
Laura nodded. “Yes.”
He looked in her eyes and caught himself backing away. He continued in Spanish for her benefit. “I spent… a lot of time with Eddie. He talked about you. You were just a kid then, I guess.” He stammered for something else to say, but nothing original came. “He talked about you.”
She smiled at first, but in seconds her round eyes narrowed to slits and her face reddened. She began to cry.
“Lo siento,” I’m sorry, she said with an embarrassed smile. She lifted her apron and wiped her dripping eyes with it, then left the room quickly.
Elena ignored the display of emotion; she had already moved and began working on the sweet potatoes in the sink.
Court stood there by himself in the center of the kitchen, now afraid to say one more fucking word.
Dammit, Gentry.
LAOS
2000
For ten minutes Court leaned his back against the wall next to the door to the stairwell with the water bottle in his hand. He’d filled the empty plastic bottle with fuzz from the wool blanket and the gauze from Eddie’s head, and he’d wrapped the outside with a piece of the blanket enshrouded in the white medical tape. This exertion threatened to put him to sleep for hours. He fought it with all his might. He’d just begun to nod off when he heard someone coming down the stairs.
Gentry hurried to his feet. He sucked in musty air tainted with the stench of his own waste, filling his lungs with the oxygen he needed to give him a burst of strength for the coming moments.
The door opened. A guard came through with a pen. He stopped as he was closing the door, noticing now that the prisoner was not in the cell.
Court Gentry moved from behind the door, slammed into the man in a bear hug, knocked him to the ground with body weight.
Court made it up to his knees. Grabbed the stunned soldier’s head with both hands, lifted it, and smacked it against the stone floor. Once, twice, three times.
The young man’s eyes remained locked open in death. Court fell on top of him. Utterly exhausted.
Seconds later he reached back with his bare foot and pushed the door shut. He finally recovered enough to pull the Chinese-made Type 77 pistol from the Laotian’s gun belt. It fired a weak 7.65 × 17 cartridge, which Gentry would have hated to bet his life on, except in the situation in which he now found himself. He struggled back across the floor, fought a wave of diarrhea that wanted to expel from his bowels as he moved, and finally made it to the door and to his water bottle. He jabbed the muzzle of the weapon into the neck of the stuffed plastic device, satisfied himself it was as secure as possible, and tried to climb back to his feet.
Nothing doing. He had neither the energy nor the balance to stand.
He’d have to fight while lying on his back.
The water bottle would serve as an adequate suppressor for the small pistol, at least for a round or two. The report of the pistol would be muffled, but it would hardly be silent, as the suppressor could do nothing for the mini sonic boom created by the bullet breaking the sound barrier.
Still, this ersatz suppressor, just like the highest-end militarygrade silencer, was designed not to make the weapon silent but to make it not sound so much like a gunshot when the weapon fired.
Looking at the dead soldier next to him on the floor, Court amended his operational plan yet again. He’d planned on dragging the man inside the cell and covering him with the remains of the blanket to fool the guards returning with Eddie. But the American operative knew good and well that if he could not even stand on his own, he hardly possessed the strength to pull the dead weight across the floor.
Instead he lay back on the floor, five feet from the door, and waited.
He fell asleep, woke up with a start as he heard a key in the lock in the door in front of him. He would have liked for Eddie and the guards to enter the room and close the door behind them so that the muffled gunshot would not be heard above. But with the dead body lying just a few feet from the door, he knew that was not possible. So as soon as the key was turned and the latch engaged, Gentry sat up, hoping like hell there were only one or two guards with Eddie.
But there were five men coming down the narrow stairwell single file. They were all soaked from the thunderstorm above, and they were tightly packed together, no man more than two steps from the next; Eddie Gamble was the third in line. The first guard still had his hand on the door latch when he stepped in. Gentry held the pistol in his right hand and held the homemade suppressor tight to the muzzle with his left hand. Before the first soldier could react, Court pointed the water bottle at the man’s face and fired a single round. The end of the bottle burst open with a loud but manageable pop, and the soldier’s head snapped back. He spun backwards to the ground with his hands rising to his bloody face.
Court did not hesitate. He raised the pistol and the smoking silencer up higher and shot the man just in front of Eddie. The Laotian had not even begun to make a move for his weapon before he took a small bullet in the right eye, and he fell dead instantly.
The wool in Court’s silencer burned and smoked now, the second report was twice that of the first. He raised it at Eddie Gamble, who wisely dropped down to his knees on the bottom step of the stairs. Court shot the man behind him in the throat just as the soldier’s handgun rose at the surprise threat down in the basement.