When I woke it was night outside, and I was very disoriented, but soon I climbed up to the bars and stared out over the town. There didn’t seem anything else to do but go back to sleep, so I did. I lay down on the bed and kipped quite well, considering.
In the morning, the door opened and a very old guard came in with toilet paper and a stainless steel cup of water and tortillas with bean paste on them.
Buenos días, I said.
Buenos días, he said and laughed.
His teeth were terrible, but his grin was infectious and I found myself mirroring it.
Eat fast, I take away, quick, he said in heavily accented English.
I ate the tortillas, which were warm and spongy. The water was ice-cold and hit the spot.
He took the water cup and the tray and ripped me off about four sheets of toilet paper and went for the door. Another guard stood in the corridor with what I took to be a stun gun in case I tried anything silly.
Where are the others? I’m an Americano, I want a lawyer, I said anxiously.
The guard shrugged, didn’t reply, and closed the metal door behind him.
I sat down on the bed.
Jesus fuck, I muttered, and put my head in my hands. I sat for a long time and I think I might have gotten weepy a little. I cursed Scotchy for the eejit born of an eejit that he undoubtedly was. I yelled out Scotchy’s name, Andy’s name, all of their names. I yelled and yelled and banged the walls. I listened for answers, but I heard nothing. A few hours after the guard had gone I heard some tapping and I thought it might be a Darkness at Noon type of message or something, but I realized after ten minutes of eager listening that it was the plumbing in the ceiling above me.
I seemed to be alone in the whole cell block. Had the others escaped somehow? Or maybe they’d tried to shoot their way out and they were dead. I paced the cell and tried to stay calm. Panic was mounting inside me and I wasn’t sure if it was a good thing to let it out or not. Maybe I should.
I banged the floor and thumped the mattress and tried to lift the bed, but it was bolted down. I kicked at the toilet, but it was pretty indestructible too.
I want a fucking lawyer. I’ll have you all on fucking 60 Minutes, I screamed through the door.
I groaned. Every time I go abroad I end up in the bloody slammer. Saint Helena, here. I must be bloody jinxed. No, just an idiot. Trusting Scotchy with something as important as my entire future. I deserved it. Really.
I sat down on the floor and found myself laughing.
That glipe Scotchy. That dick Sunshine. Ten years we’d get for this. Fucking drug smuggling. I could protest ignorance. I mean, I really didn’t know anything about it all until that morning. I could volunteer to take a lie detector. I didn’t know anything. It was just bad luck.
Night came, and even after all my anxiety I slept well. The bed was extremely comfortable and the cell was cool. In fact, it was a lot nicer than my apartment in New York.
In the morning the guard brought more tortillas, bean paste, water, and a lime. I ate and drank and he left more toilet paper, even though I hadn’t shat in a couple of days.
I did some push-ups after breakfast and stretched a little. I lay down on the bed and waited. Something would happen, eventually. And, of course, it did. Late in the afternoon, two guards appeared and asked me to get up. They didn’t handcuff me or prod me or anything, they just asked that I follow them. Once I was outside the cell, one of them offered me a smoke and I took it. They led me down a corridor and they opened up a metal door with a set of keys. On the other side of the door, a guard was waiting with a machine pistol. He smiled at us, and we went along another corridor and stopped outside an office. One of the guards turned to me and said, confidentially:
Clean, clean.
He tucked my T-shirt into my jeans and the other one signaled that I should brush down my hair. When they thought I looked ok, the first guard knocked on the door.
Enter, a voice said in English.
I went inside. The office was large, with books and box files on the wall. Seated behind a teak desk was a thin, elegantly dressed man in a dark suit. Behind him an enormous window overlooked the lagoon. There were family pictures and prints of Mayan ruins. I sat down on a leather chair opposite him.
Mr. Forsythe, let me show you something, he said in perfect American English.
He reached into a drawer and set three sheets of paper in front of me. They were confessions in English and had been signed by Scotchy, Fergal, and Andy. As I read through them, the man spoke:
Possession of an illegal weapon, possession of controlled substances, conspiracy to smuggle narcotics, attempt to smuggle narcotics. Mr. Forsythe, you are looking at over twenty years in prison.
Who are you? I asked him.
The question upset him. He had forgotten to introduce himself. His whole rehearsed little speech had gotten off on the wrong tack. He tried to recover.
I am Captain Martínez, he said.
Captain of what? I was thinking. He was in civvies, but maybe that’s what they did down here. I read the confessions. They were all the same, detailed, sensible, predictable. I could see Andy and Fergal signing but Scotchy never would. Never. They were shite. I knew this game. It was an oldie but a goldie.
So what do I get if I sign? I asked.
Three years.
Three years?
Three years.
Guaranteed?
Guaranteed.
Aye, but three Mexican years is like nine Irish years. Prisons are like dogs: America, you double; France, time and a half; in Sweden nicks are so nice, you actually divide.
Like dear old Queen Vic, he was not amused.
I picked up the paper and looked at the signatures. They’d copied Scotchy’s off his passport; the other two might be genuine, but I doubted it.
Where’s Bob’s? Robert’s?
Mr. O’Neill is being dealt with separately. He is an American citizen; you and your friends are not.
I had to concede that this was true. We were all in on Eire or UK passports. But there was no ring of truth at all about what he’d said. Had they killed Bob in a shoot-out? What was he covering up?
How about getting me a visit from a consular official or something? I asked.
Everything will be taken care of, Captain Martínez said.
No, really. I want to see the British consul, like, today.
Let me show you something, he said, giving me a little grin I didn’t like one bit.
He stood stiffly and went over to a cupboard. He opened it with a key and wheeled out a new television set. He turned it on and pressed a button on a VCR that was underneath it. Black-and-white video began to play, of us doing the deal at the rendezvous. Scotchy was opening the money bag and taking possession of the drugs. The rest of us were standing around waiting. Martínez froze the frame when there was a good shot of me.
Making a big mistake, mate. I was hitching. Them boys give me a lift, told me to wait in the car but I came in anyway, I said and smiled at him.
He glared at me and turned the TV off.
You always hitchhike with a firearm?
Dangerous country, but I’ll cop to that if you like. What’s that these days, big fine, couple of months?
Here, he said, and reached under his desk. He passed across the same form that the others had supposedly signed.
Go easy on yourself, Mr. Forsythe. It is only a token. You will be released in perhaps a year or a little more. Please go easy on yourself, he said.
Like I was saying, Mr. Martínez, sorry, Captain Martínez, when exactly do I get to see my consular representative? I’m a British citizen, and I want to see someone from the fucking embassy. If I don’t, I’ll make sure your name gets bandied about, I said, calmly.
You are in no position to make threats, he replied, equally at ease.
We sat in silence for a moment, and then he stood and motioned for the guards to take me away. I got up and walked down to the cell again. At the doo
r I asked for another smoke. I was giving up, but surely these were extreme circumstances. I wanted to save it for later, but they wouldn’t give me a match, so I had to light it now.
They locked me in.
That night the old guard came with water and tortillas. He sat with me until I’d eaten and then surreptitiously he produced a piece of lemon cake from his pocket. It was soggy and a bit tart, but clearly his missus had made it or something, and the gesture was so unbelievably nice I got a little teary. I talked to him in English, and he said a thing or two in Spanish and left.
At dawn the next morning, instead of breakfast, the guards came and cuffed me behind my back. They were gentle about it, and I appreciated it.
Where to now? I asked, but they didn’t understand.
They led me along a different corridor to an elevator.
I felt a wave of despair and terror. If I didn’t get in the elevator, nothing too bad could happen. I struggled for a bit, but they saw it was halfhearted. They shoved me and I went in, meek and head bowed. They pressed the button for the basement, and when it stopped they took me out to a van. Inside were Scotchy, Andy, and Fergal. I was pleased to see them, but before I could say anything a guard held my head and put some duct tape over my mouth. The boys had been similarly gagged.
The guards helped me up and into the van. There were two benches opposite one another and an iron bar running along each side wall. The guards undid one of my cuffs and hooked it behind the bar at my back so that I could sit but not move forwards, and barely to the side. Two of the guards got in the front, and I could see another car waiting behind us with a couple of peelers inside. They would presumably follow us in case one of us was Houdini and could get out of cuffs and the bloody iron bar. I made eye contact with Scotchy, and he gave me a nod and then a wink. That boy was a hard case. It reassured me. A fuck-up, yeah, but a tough nut to crack. We sat while one guard filled out something on a clipboard. This reassured me too. Paperwork. We were in the system somewhere. They couldn’t pretend we never existed. The other guard took the paper, folded it twice, and put it in his front pocket. That, by contrast, didn’t look so good. Somebody out of sight closed the van’s back doors and in another minute we were off.
The van drove quickly out of town and onto a straight road. There were no windows, so you couldn’t see anything except for a little scrape in the blacked-out glass partition between us and the drivers. Through that, there were tiny glimpses of what I took to be a two-lane highway through what looked like jungle. It must have been a pretty good road, since we weren’t bounced about and the vehicle managed to go quite fast.
The boys seemed in ok shape. No bruises and no cuts. We looked each other up and down to reassure ourselves, and Fergal tried to say something, but we couldn’t understand him and he eventually gave up. Scotchy closed his eyes and somehow managed to doze. The rest of us laughed behind our gags when he started to snore.
After a couple of hours, the van turned, and this time the road wasn’t so good. The going was slower, and we followed this trail for about another hour.
Finally, the van stopped, and we heard voices outside and then, very slowly, we heard it move again as if we were pulling in somewhere. Scotchy woke and the boys tensed up.
The back doors opened.
The sunlight blinding. A huge trail of dust that you couldn’t see through. A smell of piss and shit.
I blinked a few times. The dust cleared. We were in a prison.
Four guard towers hung over a central courtyard, and around the courtyard, almost like a cloister, there were cells, each with a big metal door slotted with a Judas hole. I looked around me. The walls at the front gate stretched about thirty feet high, rolls of razor wire on top. Also at the gate sat a three-story building that I took to be the guardhouse. Through the gate, surrounding the complex, I could see another fence with razor wire on top. The guard towers had spotlights, and the guards themselves were men in faded blue uniforms who carried double-barreled shotguns. There were no other prisoners about, but you could sense their presence behind the cell doors. It seemed to me that if you could get through the cell wall, all you had to do was make it over the fence and you were out of there. It didn’t appear very secure, and that reassured me. It made me think that this must be a remand prison for nondangerous felons.
There was some discussion between our driver and the prison guards. We stood around and waited. Heat, an azure sky, the gray prison walls, the dusty white courtyard.
After a time the van drove off, the big metal gates opening to let it through. Half a dozen guards came and led us over to one of the cells. They opened it up and shoved us inside. They took our handcuffs off but produced manacles, which they then bolted to our wrists in front of us. Between the manacles, they locked an eighteen-inch-long piece of chain: heavy iron, old, but still strong. Then they made us all sit down. The cell was stifling and the floor stank. The only ventilation came through a tiny barred hole on the wall near the ceiling. Cobwebs hung on the ceiling and the floor was alive with insects. When we were sitting, the guards put a manacle on our left ankle, which was connected to another heavy chain. There were six ring bolts embedded in the concrete floor, and they positioned us so that we were all near at least one of them. The guards produced huge padlocks and attached each ankle chain to a ring bolt. A guard pointed to a black bucket in the corner, and they all went out and locked the door behind them.
We ripped off our gags and all started speaking at once. Everyone had suffered more or less the same treatment. The sham with the confessions, no access to a lawyer or anyone from the outside. No one had talked. No one. Not even Andy. I was so proud of the boys. I couldn’t believe it. Jesus, even Andy. He was pleased with himself. We were all excited. I mean, we were in a hell of a spot, but we were pumped to at least be with each other. Scotchy was the first to come out with an important question:
Where’s Big Bob? he asked.
They said because he had an American passport he was being dealt with differently, I answered.
Oh, Scotchy said, skeptically.
Why, what do you think? I asked.
I don’t think anything, Bruce, Scotchy said.
Fergal stood and stretched. You could do that and maybe walk about three feet before your ankle chain stopped you.
How long do you think we’re going to be here? Fergal asked.
We all shook our heads. I was thinking that this would be it until the trial. Why bother to move us at all unless it was a reasonably permanent change? And letting us all be in the same cell together wasn’t too bright, unless they were completely confident about winning their case, which with the video they probably were.
They said we were looking at twenty years, Andy said, quietly.
No way, Scotchy said, reassuringly. No way, Andy. For a start, Darkey will pull some strings. That’s how these countries work. We’ll sit tight, Andy boy, and sooner or later they’ll have to give us a lawyer. This isn’t Africa, this is Mexico. They need to keep tight with America, do things right.
Yeah, they’ll give us lawyers, Fergal said hopefully, sitting down again.
That’s right, eventually we’ll get a lawyer, and you’ll see how Darkey comes through for us, Scotchy said, and I could see he really believed it, he wasn’t just saying it for us.
When will Darkey get us out? Andy asked.
Well now, Andy, don’t for one thing get your hopes up. I mean, he can’t just get us out. He’ll send a boy, and he’ll probably make us plead guilty to something, so he will. Darkey White is Darkey White, but he’s not God. We’ll do time, but it won’t be much, Scotchy said sagely.
How much is much, do you think? Fergal asked.
I don’t know, but not hard time, nothing like that. Just enough to make you tough and give you a story for the girls back home, Scotchy said and winked at him.
I didn’t say anything. I was thinking of Big Bob. I was thinking of the map he had. I was wondering where the hell he was now, and I had a
terrible suspicion that I knew exactly where that might be.
We talked some more. Our morale was pretty good, Scotchy had done a job cheering us. Night came, and we lay down on the concrete floor. The temperature dipped, and it got a little cold. I was thankful that I’d been wearing my jeans the day we’d left; the boys, of course, were all still in their shorts. The insects were tiny bugs that you got used to. The spiders up there had eaten all the bigger ones, but still, with them and the hard floor, it was difficult getting over to sleep….
In the morning we’d half-filled the slop bucket. It had been a bugger passing it around all chained up. We waited for the guards to come and open up the door to let us pour it out. The smell was bad and flies were hovering around it. The heat was no worse than my place in Manhattan but, like I say, the stench was terrible.
There are rats, you know, Fergal said while we waited.
I didn’t see any, I said.
There’s rats and lizards and they come onto you when you’re sleeping, Andy said.
Andy had woken loudly a few times in the night, terrified. I wondered if he was imagining it, but then I did see a couple of rats skulking near the door. The gap under the door was only about half an inch, but rats can do an impressive limbo when they want to. They didn’t bother me, though, they’ve never bothered me, and wee lizards I could handle as well. And the boys, I knew, would get used to them.
You’ll get used to them, you’ll see, I said, but Andy looked doubtful.
We waited all morning but no guards came, and it wasn’t until evening that the cell door opened and a guard put down a jug of water and four bowls of rice.
Veinte minutos, he said and closed the door behind him.
We ate greedily and drank the water, and he came half an hour later for the empty bowls and the carafe. We hadn’t finished the water, so we all desperately took a final swig before he grabbed it back.
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