Last Man Standing

by Cindy Gerard

  “Look, we can do this the easy way, Lieutenant, or we can make it difficult—more for you than for me.” She held her ground even though her knees had turned to rubber. “Either allow me access to the American prisoner, or I’ll be forced to call Liaison Dalmage to intervene, right after I contact my friends at CNN.”

  She prayed to God that her tough as nails, “I don’t take no crap from no underling” attitude wasn’t as transparent as the scratched glass covering his battered desktop.

  The police lieutenant stared back at her through unblinking eyes set deep in his dark, fat face. How did a man in a country of hungry people manage to glut himself to the point of obesity?

  He was probably on the take, his hand deep in some politician’s back pocket. Money and corruption talked in any language.

  If he didn’t buy her bluff, she was sunk, and so was Joe. She didn’t know Dalmage; hadn’t had time to track him down in the two hours since her plane had hit the tarmac, she’d cleared customs, had managed to hail a cab, had finally caught a ferry and ridden it across the bay from Lungi to Freetown. She’d experienced a frustrating flight delay with her connection in London . . . lengthening her trip by almost ten grueling hours and increasing her sense of urgency that insisted she get to Joe as quickly as possible. She’d headed straight for the jail after she’d cleared customs.

  Now that she was inside the antiquated facility and had watched, in horror, the treatment of a man who had just been arrested, urgency had turned to a deep, primal fear.

  Joe was inside a cell in this building. She was desperately afraid for his life.

  She made a show of impatience by glancing at her watch. The lieutenant—Saidu Bangura, said the placard on his desk—cut his implacable gaze from her face to the forged documents she had handed him upon introducing herself.

  She had to pray that dropping Dalmage’s name got results, since the credentials identifying her as a vice-consulate with the U.S. embassy in Freetown hadn’t done the trick.

  Bangura continued to study the fake ID in silence, all the while flicking the tip of his thumb back and forth over the corner of the paper.

  “Officer Bangura,” she said impatiently. “I have both Mr. Dalmage and Lou Dobbs from CNN on speed dial.”

  For a long, agonizing moment, she thought he was going to call her bluff.

  “You have five minutes with the prisoner,” he said, sounding displeased but resigned to avoid any potential political attention that might cast him in a bad light.

  He stood and handed the fake papers back to her. She was thankful to see he was looking toward another officer to assist him. Her hand was shaking as though she was about to jump out of a plane without a parachute, which was exactly how she felt.

  “This way, please, miss,” the younger man said.

  “Five minutes,” Bangura repeated as the door closed behind her.

  She followed the officer out of Bangura’s office, down a hall, and waited as he unlocked a door that led to yet another hallway. They weren’t even halfway to the end of the hall when the overpowering stench of human waste, filth, misery, and despair almost sent her to her knees. Her eyes burned. She fought back the roiling nausea. For a horrible moment, she thought she would lose the meal she’d been served on the plane several hours ago.

  She cupped her palm over her nose, took several breaths through her mouth, and focused on the reason she was here.

  Joe had lived in this horror for a month. She could handle it for five minutes.

  She steeled herself as the smell intensified when they neared a heavily fortified door. A barred window approximately eighteen inches square had been cut into the center of the door at eye level. The officer stopped, knocked, and a few moments later, a man’s face appeared through the bars. The jailer nodded to the officer and after the rattle of keys in the lock, the door swung open.

  Reeling from the appalling conditions, Stephanie waited while the two men exchanged words. The jailer slowly looked her over as he pulled a set of keys on a retractable chain away from his belt.

  Without comment, he unlocked a second door made entirely of iron bars and swung it open.

  “Number six,” he said as Stephanie stepped into the cell block.

  She flinched involuntarily when the door slammed shut behind her with a heavy thud of metal against metal.

  “Stay away from the bars. We may not be able to arrive in time if one of them grabs you,” he added from the other side of the barred door. His tone made it clear that no one would hurry to help her.

  Still fighting queasiness, she turned back toward the cell block, trying to shut out the moans of misery from the shadowed recesses of the cage-like cells on either side of the aisle. Her heart pounded like thunder as she pushed past the fear and walked haltingly toward the cell with a worn number 6 imprinted in the stained concrete floor in front of the door.

  Her senses were so saturated with revulsion over the conditions, and the light was so dim, that at first she didn’t see the figure hunched low in the corner of the cage.

  When she spotted him, her breath caught. His head was down, resting heavily on the knees he’d pulled up to his chest and encircled with his arms. His feet were bare; he was shirtless and filthy. She actually found herself praying that it wasn’t him.

  “Joe?” she said tentatively from the center of the aisle, heeding the guard’s warning.

  No response.

  “Joe Green?” she repeated more firmly.

  Her breath stalled as she waited. Again, there was no response. But then, very slowly, the man’s head came up. His eyes opened and met hers . . . and her wildly racing heart kicked up to warp speed.

  Oh, God.

  It was him. Or what was left of him.

  Jesus, oh, Jesus, what had they done to him?

  Her eyes had adjusted enough to the dim light to see signs of the horror he’d been through. Through the dirt and grime coating his body, she could see a multitude of dark bruises coloring his chest, arms, and the legs showing beneath the tattered remains of his pants. An angry wound slashed across his forehead.

  But the full measure of what he’d endured showed in the cold, vacant stare of the eyes that met hers first with denial, then with confused recognition, then with an unvarnished panic that broke her heart into a million pieces.

  She’d seen his eyes when he had his warrior face on. Seen them tender in the aftermath of passion; haunted after living through a nightmare.

  But she’d never seen them like this. Tortured, caged, even a little crazed.

  She touched trembling fingers to her lips, feeling sick and afraid and . . . But she had to keep it together.

  “Joe,” she whispered around the knot in her throat. “Joe. It’s Stephanie.”

  Dropping all pretense of being an uninvolved embassy employee, she rushed forward, pressing close to the cage.

  “Joe?”

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” he snarled in a harsh whisper.

  She’d expected shock, and knew his outrage was a manifestation of that.

  “How badly are you hurt?” She clutched a rusted iron bar in each hand as hot tears trickled down her cheeks. “Can you stand? Can you walk?”

  “Get back,” he growled hoarsely and with difficulty, rose to his feet. He cut a wild glance past her shoulder toward the locked door, as if he expected the guard to arrive at any moment. “You can’t be here.”

  His hostility is because he’s frightened for me. And because he’s wounded and trapped like an animal.

  “I’m going to get you out of here.”

  A wildness filled his eyes. “No. They’ll lock you up, too,” he warned in a voice made harsh by pain.

  “They wouldn’t dare imprison a U.S. embassy official,” she said, wishing she believed it.

  Bewilderment flashed over his face before it dawned on him that she’d gotten in with a fake ID.

  “You have no idea what they would do,” he hissed under his breath. “Now get the hell out
of here before they catch on that you know me.”

  “Joe . . . listen to me. The guys can’t come. They’re on a blackout mission. We don’t know when they’ll be back. So I’m it—I’m the cavalry. Tell me what to do to help you, before they make me leave,” she pressed, undeterred by his warnings.

  “You don’t get it,” he gritted out between clenched teeth as he half lurched, half stumbled to the cell door. His hands were shaking, his knuckles bleeding from fresh wounds as he gripped the bars on either side of her hands. “There’s nothing you can do. Just get out of here. Now.”

  Her heart was breaking. Up close, the signs of the beatings he’d taken were even clearer. He was skin and bones; clearly, he was fed starvation rations. His hair was over an inch long, his beard was matted and shaggy, his bare feet stained with only God knew what.

  He was in a living hell.

  She had to get him out of here before they killed him. She covered his hands with hers. “Help me help you. Please tell me what to do. Who can I contact? Surely someone can be bought off to get you released.”

  For an instant, the Joe she knew came back to life in his eyes. She thought he was coming around. Then he jerked his hands out from under hers and slammed them against the bars above her head.

  “Guard! Guard! Get her out of here!” he roared in a hoarse, angry yell, his eyes going from cold, flinty gray to hot, smoky ash.

  His rage was so unexpected, so violent, that she jumped backward before she caught herself and realized what he was doing. Protecting her. Again.

  “Don’t,” she pleaded in a strained whisper. She glanced desperately behind her. “Don’t do this.”

  “Guard!” he yelled again, slamming both hands against the bars with a brute strength she hadn’t thought he could possibly possess.

  “Step back, miss.”

  She jerked her head around to see the jailor entering the cell block.

  She met Joe’s eyes, and her heart fell as she saw his total and unbending determination to get rid of her.

  “Get her the fuck out of here!” Joe demanded as he shifted his gaze to the guard. “I don’t want any counsel from the U.S. goddamn embassy. And I don’t want this woman let in here again.”

  He turned his back to her, and she had no choice but to walk away.

  Her head was fuzzy with shock and disappointment and fear for Joe’s life when they reached the locked door to the cell block.

  “What will happen to him?”

  “I do not know, miss. As of tomorrow, he will no longer be my problem.”

  She stopped abruptly, touched a hand to the guard’s arm as he fit a key in the lock. “What happens tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow he will be moved to a maximum security prison to await his trial date.”

  Her knees threatened to give out again. “Maximum security? Where?”

  The guard swung the barred door open and lifted a hand, gesturing for her to walk through it ahead of him.

  He’d already tuned her out. She wasn’t getting any more information out of him.

  She’d failed, she realized as she was led down the hallway, let out into the outer office, then escorted to the front door and shown outside into the blistering morning heat.

  She stood on the top step of the jail, feeling ineffective and disgusted with herself for her inability to function in Joe’s world. She’d come to help, and she’d proven that she could help with exactly nothing.

  But she couldn’t give up. A renewed sense of urgency filled her. She had to get in contact with Dalmage. He was the man with the teeth around here. Somehow, someway, she would convince him to help her, and she would go to extreme measures to make certain that he did.

  6

  Fueled by new determination, Stephanie rushed down the jail’s steps to the sidewalk and scanned the busy block. Her cell phone was useless here—she hadn’t had time to get an international SIM card—but if she could locate an Internet café or a Wi-Fi connection to access her Skype account, she could call Rhonda to find out if she’d gotten a lead on where to find Dalmage.

  She’d taken several steps down the sidewalk when she felt the hair on the back of her neck stand at attention. Stopping abruptly, she looked behind her, a gut feeling telling her that she was being followed.

  The foot traffic was as heavy as the street traffic, which rushed by with a reckless disregard for anything that resembled a speed limit. Everyone seemed to be in a very big hurry as horns honked, dust swirled, and bicyclists wove in and out of the melee at their own peril.

  No one seemed to be paying any attention to her. She moved on, trying to shake the persistent sense that she was being watched. But the sensation kept after her like a cobweb, and she stopped again, whirled around—and saw a teenage boy watching her intently from about three yards away.

  Great. She was going to get mugged.

  She started walking away from him as fast as she could.

  “Miss? You are American?”

  Okay. Muggers didn’t announce themselves. Maybe he was a beggar. She walked faster, ignoring him in the hope that he’d leave her in search of another mark.

  “Miss, please. Are you here to see Joe Green?”

  That stopped her like a bucket of ice water. She turned around.

  The boy—he couldn’t have been more than thirteen or fourteen—stood in bare feet, wearing a ragged white T-shirt that hadn’t seen detergent in a very long time and baggy, sand-colored shorts.

  “You are a friend of Joe’s?” he asked, sounding hopeful.

  She glanced around to see if anyone was watching them. Satisfied that no one was, she looked back at the boy and studied his face. “You know Joe?”

  He nodded and repeated his question. “You are a friend?”

  “Yes,” she said as her heart fluttered with an irrational anticipation. “I’m Joe’s friend.”

  He assessed her through eyes that were old beyond his years.

  “And you? Are you also a friend of Joe’s?” She met his probing stare with one of her own.

  He hesitated, then finally nodded. “I am,” he said reluctantly.

  A friend who didn’t want to be a friend. That was clear. And only a boy, she thought again. Yet she could see in his bearing that he had endured more trials than most men three times his age.

  “He is in very bad trouble,” the boy said.

  Yes, he was. “What’s your name?”

  “Suah,” he said and drew his shoulders back. A very proud boy.

  “How do you know Joe?”

  He ignored her question. “I can help.”

  “Help do what?”

  “Get him out.” He hitched his chin toward the jail.

  She shook her head. “I couldn’t help him. How can you help? Why would you help?” What could this boy possibly do?

  “I will help,” he repeated with a solemn determination that made her want to believe him.

  “Look. Joe is fortunate to have you as a friend. But you can’t help him now. I’m sorry. I have to go talk to someone who can,” she said apologetically. She had to get hold of Rhonda and Rafe.

  “Talking will take time. And do no good.” The warning in his voice chilled her blood despite the oppressive heat. “I know what happens to men who are arrested in Freetown. They die. You must come with me,” he insisted. “I have a plan.”

  She stared at him. Common sense told her to walk away, because he was a child. Because she didn’t know him from Adam. Because the logical thing would be to get a lead on Dalmage.

  But this boy had a plan. Something she didn’t.

  She’d been running on gut instinct from the moment she’d seen the photograph of Joe being marched into the jail. She’d broken the law, obtaining forged identification on instinct. She’d flown here on instinct. Gone to the jail on instinct.

  “We must hurry, miss,” he insisted.

  When he turned and motioned for her to follow him, she went with her instincts again and trailed after him down the street, praying t
o God that she was doing the right thing.

  “Madre de Dios! Stephanie, what the hell were you thinking?”

  She’d known before she’d called BOI HQ that Rafe wouldn’t be happy when he found out she was in Sierra Leone, and she was glad for the thousands of miles that separated them.

  She glanced at Suah, who stood sentinel behind the street phone booth where she’d used an international calling card she’d just bought.

  “Look, Rafe, we don’t have time for this. Can you transfer the money into my account today or not?”

  “Of course I’ll transfer the money—that’s not the issue!”

  “I know what the issue is.”

  “Jesus, Steph. How do you know you can trust this kid to deliver?”

  She’d known Suah Korama all of two hours, and she was betting Joe’s life on that trust and asking Rafe to do the same.

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “But I’m not looking at many options here. Joe’s close to the edge.” The memory of his bruised, starved body made her choke up. The look in his eyes had terrified her, making her wonder if she was already too late.

  “If I don’t do something fast, he’s going to die before he ever gets to trial. And even if he makes it that far, they’re still going to kill him.”

  “I’ll say this again. Please try the embassy,” Rafe persisted.

  “You’re not listening,” she snapped, then settled herself down. Rafe was worried. He cared. He wanted her to go the safe route, even though he would do anything but play it safe if he was in a position to help Joe himself.

  “The embassy hasn’t received official confirmation that he’s an American citizen. Because the police haven’t released his name to the public, the embassy can’t even initiate action that might help. The only reason I got in to see him was because I threw them off guard by knowing who he was and threatening to call my ‘contacts’ at CNN.”

  She paused and drew a frustrated breath. “I need that money in two hours, or I’m not going to be able to make this work. Can you deliver?”

  “You’ll get the money,” he promised, sounding weary. “Just tell me what you and this kid are planning.”