by Don Prichard
“Betty Parker called me.”
Jake’s moment of indulgence fled. “Where is she? Has something happened?”
“She has been deported.”
“Deported!” Had he heard Lee correctly? “How can someone only weeks in the country be deported? And Betty? What could she possibly have done?”
“A difference between her passport and visa concerning her year of birth.”
“Impossible. She got that straightened out before she came here. Unless the visa was incorrect …”
“All I know is what she told me. She asked if I would be your go-between until she returns.” Jaws clenched, brow plowed in angry furrows, Lee glanced out the window. “You should not be in this foul place. I suspect someone has been well-paid to put you here.”
Jake’s stomach muscles knotted. “The judge. I was told I’d have to bribe him to move the trial date up.”
“Unfortunately, that is not uncommon. What will you do?”
Jake set his jaw. “Rely upon a higher Judge who can’t be bribed.”
Lee raised an eyebrow. “A righteous Judge, yes, but often to be waited on as well.”
“So, while I languish, is there a way to find out who bribed the earthly judge?”
Lee chewed his cheek, considering. “As a detective, I advise you to sort through your enemies.”
His enemies? His only enemy was Captain Emilio.
Or was he?
Other candidates popped into his mind and stood like suspects in an eyewitness lineup: Bradley Henshaw and the Justice Department with their restraining order. The criminal that Henshaw accused Jake of being in cahoots with—Danny Romero, was it? Jake’s bumbling lawyer, Neil Oakleigh, who allowed Jake to be deported. And what about that private detective Betty hired to find Eve? Ian MacBride. Hadn’t Jake told him about killing the thug on the island?
Jake swallowed at the last suspect in the lineup. Eve. In one way or another, all the suspects had her in common. Like it or not, she was the starting point of his troubles. The ache he strove daily to suppress rolled over him.
“Colonel Chalmers, I must go soon. Let me tell you how I agreed to help. Mrs. Parker opened a bank account in Manila for you. With your consent, I will manage it for you and Mrs. Parker. When you need purchases, I will get them for you.”
Jake nodded dully. Money wasn’t what he needed.
“To ensure mail delivery, I will also take responsibility for bringing and sending letters between you and Mrs. Parker and Crystal Oakleigh.”
Jake’s heart perked at the prospect of hearing from his loved ones. “And my children too. If you have pen and any kind of paper handy, I’ll write a quick note to all four.”
Warmed by the prospect of contact with his loved ones, Jake opened up and told Detective Lee about his plans for reforming the prison.
The detective blanched. “I’m afraid my other mission today may destroy your hopes, Colonel. Even worse, it will most likely endanger you. My official assignment for coming here was the delivery of a prisoner. This is his second stay at Salonga Prison—never mind how or why. What’s important is that the first time around, he ruled the inmates. Ruthlessly.” Lee paused. “He will not settle for second place.”
“He’s inside already? Usually the inmates ‘welcome’ newcomers with this ritual of—”
“Scar needs no introduction. The only ones to greet him today were his fellow Muslims.”
“Scar?”
“When you see him, you will understand the name. He will seek to kill you and slaughter your group. Probably tonight, out of sight of the guards. He and his men will most likely use metal from the bunk beds to fashion shivs.”
“Shouldn’t the warden—”
“The warden won’t interfere with what he can’t see.”
Frowning, Jake exited the van. All those plans he had to restore hope inside the prison … he’d been so sure they were God’s plans to be executed through him. He clamped his teeth, fisted his hands. Scar must not be allowed to take the leadership away from him.
Before closing the van door, he leaned back in, chains clanking, and put a hand on his quickly scribbled letters. “Make sure these get mailed, please.”
If Scar prevailed, these were the last words his loved ones would hear from him.
Chapter 36
At the evening meal, Jake encountered his new enemy.
Scar was magnificent. Tall, lean of shoulder and hip, sweat burnishing well-developed muscles, skin unblemished except for a jagged scar forming two connected M’s on his forehead. He wore the mark like a crown. Even the mosquitoes seemed afraid to land on him.
The man stood to the side of the meal line, not participating in the food distribution, arms folded across his chest. Eyes black as coal studied every movement, every prisoner. No one looked at him, yet each squirmed as his eyes lit on them, burning holes, leaving smoke behind. No one lingered in the courtyard.
From the dark archways behind Scar, a single voice rose and fell in a chant repeated at intervals by zealous voices. The noise filled the passageways of the maze and burst onto the courtyard like thunderclaps releasing lightning. Bolts of electricity leaped down Jake’s spine. Spread to char his fingernails and toenails. Singe his hair. Melt his bones.
“Muslim prayer?”
Puno nodded. “They prepare to fight. There will be no battle of champions in the open, but war in concealment.”
Jake grunted. “Then we’d better prepare too.” While he waited for his group to finish the food distribution and join him in prayer, he gave orders to his troop of frail soldiers.
Most of the men would be lambs easily slaughtered. He assigned leaders to each dorm room and told them to barricade their doors with bunk beds. “Make it impossible to get to you.” For sure the invalids lying in the hallways would be butchered. “Move these men to the farthest point of the maze.” There was no way to accommodate them in the crowded dorm rooms; distance would have to be their defense.
He shifted his own location to the dorm room closest to the archways. Men willing to fight would be stationed with him and in the dorm rooms nearby. For weapons, they disassembled bunk beds to create what arms they could.
Men who had disdained Jake’s morning devotions now flocked to the prayer meeting. “You do well to come,” Puno chided them. “Fear not for your bodies but for your souls. Fear Him who is the Judge, not those who send you to Him through death.”
They met in the courtyard and lifted their voices to Heaven. Some with hands held high. Some with heads bowed low. Some on their knees or flat on the ground. Their supplications echoed against the concrete walls, magnifying their pleas into a thousand voices, rising like a pillared cloud into the evening sky.
Scar and his men filed out of their archways and stood at a distance, faces impassive. Jake felt Scar’s eyes blaze into his, not challenging him but already triumphant. Fire ignited in Jake’s soul. He lifted his head and stared back, chest expanded, power storming his lungs.
Scar raised his chin as if in acknowledgment of a dare accepted.
***
“He’s playing us,” Jake said. “Trying to wear us down.”
Three days of waiting, and already the seventy-five men who had offered to stand with him had dropped to fifty. The volunteers’ eyes were bloodshot, their limbs trembling from lack of sleep. None had experience with combat. All had vivid imaginations. Jake suspected many had laid victory alongside hope in a shallow grave.
“Scar will seek me out,” Jake told the fifty. “We must use that to our advantage.”
That night, the lights in the maze and dorm rooms did not come on. The darkness crimped Jake’s carefully laid plan. “We’ll make it work,” he growled.
***
The stench of sweat exacerbated by anxiety permeated the maze and prison dorm rooms. Hours went by. Every rustle, every shift of tired feet, every grunt and cough and shuddered breath bred goose bumps and bristled hair. Mouths dried and throats wilted. Stomachs knotted and lu
ngs shriveled. When the attack came, it would be a relief.
Dawn was the first intruder. In the dorm rooms, it cast a gray pall on every man, revealing his whereabouts, disclosing his identity. Heartbeats accelerated. Breaths came faster. Surely now their enemy would come.
A cry cut the air. Sentries or assailants? Jake’s men rushed forward, stampeding the maze, jamming the archways. Flourishing weapons made from disassembled bunk beds, they shoved their opponents backwards into the guards’ rifle sights. Warning shots rang out, puckering the ground.
Six assailants made it into the first dorm room. At the far side of the room, Jake jumped up from a lower bunk and brandished a four-foot-long piece of metal. At last!
“SCAR!” he roared.
His adversary stepped forward and charged. Behind Scar, ten of Jake’s men converged on the other five assailants to cut them off. Jake tensed at the sight of the shiv Scar raised against him. He took a step back. His shoulders struck the top bunk.
One more stride, and Scar had him in striking distance.
“Now!” Jake yelled. On the top bunk, two men rose grasping a blanket between them and leaped off on either side of Jake and Scar. They slapped the blanket like a net over Scar as he lunged at Jake. The blade of the shiv ripped through the thin material and sliced Jake’s forearm.
Jake grabbed his attacker’s hand and spun him 180 degrees. He clamped his other arm around Scar’s neck. The inside of his elbow locked under Scar’s chin to imprison him gasping for air against Jake’s chest. One of the jumpers grabbed Scar’s shiv out of the way; the other hurried to block the breaking daylight from the window.
“Infidel,” Jake’s man with the confiscated shiv howled. He backed away in tandem with Jake’s men fending off the five Muslims. Eight of Jake’s men fled as if yielding victory. Two slumped to the floor. In the diminished light, Jake hid behind his pinned captive. The Muslims took up the cry of “Infidel” and rushed to the bunk bed. Over and over, they plunged their shivs into the struggling prisoner beneath the blanket until movement ceased.
All at once, the overhead lights switched on. Jake’s men crowded into the room and overpowered the five Muslims. “You have killed your leader,” Jake bellowed. He stepped from behind his captive and flung off the blanket to reveal its victim. Eyes and mouth gaping, Scar’s head flopped forward onto torn garments plastered in blood. “Take him and go!” Jake shoved the body at them.
His men let go of the prisoners, and three caught the body, two leaped at Jake. They knocked him backwards onto the bottom bunk and sprung on top of him, fists flailing his face. Jake grunted at the hatchet blow to his nose, the gouge leveled at his right eye socket. One eye functioning, he reached up and clapped hands of steel against his assailants’ heads. The crack of their skulls colliding was most satisfying. He pushed the men off him and stood, legs apart to bolster rickety knees.
The two moaning opponents were pulled to their feet and thrust at their companions. Muttering guttural noises, the five men bore Scar away, and the remainder of Jake’s volunteers filed into the room. Their mouths were thin lines, their faces sober. Jake grimaced at what it forebode: the battle was over, but not won.
“The guards collaborated,” Puno said. “They turned the lights off for Scar’s men to invade us. There will be payback.”
Minutes later, Jake’s name blared over the loudspeaker.
Chapter 37
Jake had wondered what the lone metal pole in the prison courtyard was for. A personal demonstration was the last thing he expected.
A rope threaded through holes at either end of the pole secured his hands and feet and suspended him fully stretched out, face to the pole. Even at this early hour, the morning sun had heated the metal to just short of scorching. He sacrificed his knees against it to keep his chest and face free of the scalding surface. The glare of sun against metal bit his one good eye.
He had been stripped of his shirt. Sweat slid in great drops over the scars on his chest and back. Scars carved by pit bull, clouded leopard, bullet holes. The cane lashes from the lone guard behind him would add a fourth species of scars to Jake’s collection.
The murmur of inmates surrounding him pulsated like a three-day migraine. Close by, his group shouted protests against the injustice of his punishment. A glimpse of the Muslims showed them silently stoic, their faces equally angry but triumphant. Loudest of all were the cheers of group one. His heartbeat jumped at what looked like Captain Emilio at the back of the group.
Unable to twist far enough to confirm his suspicion about Emilio, he tilted his head and looked up. Above him, a solid line of guards filled the top of the three walls of the courtyard. Each held a rifle pointed at prisoners. On the fourth wall, the barred windows of the second-story prison offices were darkened with the heads of employees. A lone figure stood at the central window. The warden?
Black clouds had rolled in, blotting out the sky, threatening a late monsoon storm. A rare wind swept over the prison, forcing the guards to brace against it. It roared through the courtyard, trashing the air with debris, compelling the inmates to cover their faces. As if Jake were its target, the blast pommeled his body, jerking it, yanking it, jarring it until he cried out, sure the gates of Hell had been prevailed upon.
When the gale subsided, the inmates returned to their murmuring. Jake’s body sagged from his bound arms down to his toes with an unholy ache. Red welts from slamming against the sun-broiled pole striped the front of his body. His vision blurred, his head swam. When he opened his mouth to gasp in air, big, black flies collided with his tongue.
And then, all at once, it was quiet. The synchronized silence of men holding their breaths.
Jake tensed. The clock of eternity ticked off seconds.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
And the blow landed.
Never had Jake felt such pain.
He screamed.
Again and again the supple bamboo of the cane cut into his back.
Pounding. Lashing. Pulverizing his flesh.
Until, mercifully, darkness shut him down.
***
“Jake.” Puno’s voice penetrated Jake’s pain, brought him shuddering to the surface. “Get up.”
He opened his eyes. Above him, the ropes hung empty from the metal pole. Two of his men pulled him to his knees, lifted him to his feet. He staggered, and they steadied him.
“Quick.” Puno seized his arm. “We must go, before the guards shoot.”
The shouts of a melee opened up Jake’s ears. Clashing around him on every side were men in hand-to-hand skirmishes. “What happened?” he rasped.
“Our men jumped the guard when he refused to stop at ten blows. Then men from the other two groups attacked them.” Puno tugged at him. “Quick. It’s turned into a riot.”
Jake waggled his head to clear his vision. “Where’s the guard?”
Puno pointed to five of his men bent over a figure in a brown uniform.
“Take me to him.” At the first step, pain seared every nerve in Jake’s body. He doubled over and spewed stomach acid. “On second thought,” he gasped, “bring him to me.”
When the cluster of men holding the guard pushed its way to him, Jake pointed a shaking finger at the front gate. “We’re taking him to safety.”
Holding up Jake, the men, led by Puno, shoved their way through the fracas. At the gate, the guards seized their comrade, then Jake as well. With a squawk of protest, Puno slipped through with Jake. Behind them, shots spattered the ground and walls, and the echo of shouts and running footsteps swallowed the courtyard.
Without his men to support him, Jake’s knees gave way and he sank to the ground. Blood seeped from his back to smear the welts on his front side and further stain his shorts. At a command from someone on the floor above him, the guards picked up Jake and ascended a set of stairs. Puno tenaciously accompanied them.
Fading in and out of consciousness, gritting his teeth at the pain, he was aware of
someone cleansing and bandaging his wounds. Food and water were placed in his hands and shared with Puno. When Jake could stand, he and Puno were ushered back to the gate. Jake wore a clean shirt and shorts and carried a blanket.
“Seven days, you come to warden,” the guard ordered. “You face the music.” The gate clanged shut behind them.
Chapter 38
November
Did Jake know Thanksgiving week was coming up? Most likely not. Betty resisted the temptation to gather Crystal at the airport gate and immediately book a flight from Detroit to Manila. Wouldn’t Jake and Crystal love that! But not, for heaven’s sake, at that awful prison. She heaved a disgruntled sigh. Impossible anyway, until her passport and visa got straightened out. Crystal would have to make do with just her crusty old aunt for the Thanksgiving holidays.
“Aunty!” Crystal wove through the crowd of deplaning passengers and swooped into Betty’s waiting arms, almost knocking her down.
Goodness, the child must have grown three inches since she last saw her. Betty held the sweet face between her hands and smiled so big the corners of her mouth hurt. The year on the island had bonded them beyond anything family ties could do. Jake and Eve too. Oh my, how could so many things happen to tear the four of them apart?
“Where are Grandma and Grandpa? At home?”
Betty’s cheek twitched. It was all she could do not to snarl the answer. “Gone.” She huffed and rearranged her attitude as if it were the hem of her skirt catching in the waist of her panty hose. “Off with friends on some kind of trip, dearie.” She’d bawled Neal out for not staying home to spend time with Crystal.
“Oh good. I’m glad it’s just you and me.”
A catch in Crystal’s voice warned Betty of the need for a serious discussion coming up. Something had happened at that boarding school Neal insisted on sending her to. The man was unjust in treating Crystal the way he did. Betty bit her lower lip. He was punishing Crystal for her mother’s behavior. Probably hoping Crystal would run away from home too, when instead he should be making amends and giving his granddaughter the love he had failed to demonstrate with his daughter.