Six Minutes To Freedom

by John Gilstrap

  He had to do something with it, though. The time was coming when they were either going to move him, or notice that he had somethingin his mouth. The receipt itself was incriminating enough; imaginehow quickly their interest would peak if they discovered that he was trying to swallow it.

  He had another wild thought. The corner of the room where he was sitting was constructed of concrete block, right? Well concrete block—he’d always called them cinder blocks when he was growing up—had thousands of little nooks and crannies in them. What perfect hiding places for soggy, spit-drenched pieces of a Holiday Inn receipt.

  Removing the spitball from his mouth, he went to work tearing tiny bits of paper off the wad and stuffing them into the irregularities of the wall.

  It took every bit of half an hour, and more than a few of the paper crumbs fell out of their crannies onto the floor, but he finally got the task done.

  Hours passed before they finally summoned him again.

  Your mind starts to play games with your body when exhaustion is unrelenting, and for Kurt, the most debilitating symptom of exhaustionwas a deepening sadness over all that had transpired in the past several days. His mind kept sinking back into that crushing sense of guilt over all that he had wrought against his family and friends.

  He tried to fight the darkest of the thoughts, but the exhaustion would not let him silence them altogether. Every time he felt that he might be getting a handle on rationality, the relentlessness of the boom box somehow wrenched it from his grip. He knew he was losing his edge, and he feared that there was nothing he could do about it.

  The door to his closet flew open, startling him. He could tell just from the expression on the guard’s face that there had been a significantdevelopment. “Come,” the guard said.

  It occurred to Kurt for the first time that they had started to address him with the same words and the same inflection as the one he used for his dog. The room tilted a little as he stood, but he didn’t stumble. He did his best to stand tall as he followed the guard back to the officewhere his last confrontation with the captain had taken place.

  As he stepped across the threshold, he felt the color drain from his face. They had the gym bag. That meant they had everything.

  It’s amazing what you never think about when you think you’ll never be caught. From the earliest days of their clandestine operations, Kurt had kept all their tradecraft tools (such as they were) stuffed in a black athletic bag, which he in turn kept well hidden under the backseatof his Jeep. In it were his two-way radio, the PDF code book, the keys to all the apartments where the transmitters were stored—everythingthey would need to nail him to the wall.

  “From the look on your face, I presume that you recognize these toys,” the captain said.

  Kurt didn’t bother to respond. What could he say?

  The captain motioned to a chair. “Sit,” he said.

  Kurt sat. The charades and the gamesmanship were all over. Now it was only the darkness of the future.

  The captain produced two more signed leases and dangled them in the air in front of Kurt. “How many mistresses can one man have?” the captain asked.

  He was toying, and Kurt chose not to rise to the bait.

  Next, the captain displayed the radio, the code book, and a set of apartment keys. “I’m sure that these have something to do with your mistresses as well? The time has come for you to start talking openly and honestly with us, Mr. Muse. With your help or without it, we will match these keys with the appropriate apartments, and we will know what you are hiding. Make it easier on yourself by making it easier on us.”

  Kurt’s heart felt as though it had been gripped by an invisible hand. What would stalling for time do now? How much time could it possiblybuy? Two, three hours maybe? Surely his friends and family had had the time to get away by now. There are elements of chess in every negotiation, and as in chess, there comes a moment to surrender.

  “I am Radio la Voz de la Libertad,” Kurt said.

  The captain did not appear to be surprised.

  Kurt went on, “Those leases and those keys are for the apartments I rented to house the transmitters. Give me the keys and I’ll tell you which keys go to which apartments.”

  The captain made no effort to hand the keys over. “Who else is involved?”

  The invisible hand made a fist. “No one,” he said.

  The captain’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t lie to me.”

  Kurt looked away. He’d been a terrible liar his entire life. Whenever he’d tried, people always knew. His only defense was to cast his eyes downward. No matter what, he would not betray his friends. He would not give out their names.

  “You work for the CIA,” the captain said.

  Kurt’s head snapped up. “No.”

  “Yes,” the captain said. “Your computer uses a different operating system. Did you really think that we wouldn’t find out?”

  Silence.

  “Answer me, Mr. Muse.”

  “I never gave it much thought,” he said, honestly enough. “It’s an Apple computer. Right off the shelf.”

  “Provided to you by the American CIA.”

  “No!”

  “We know that you are a spy, Mr. Muse. We know that they have been supplying your equipment.”

  “I am not a spy,” Kurt insisted.

  “You are an employee of the CIA.”

  “I am not!” His voice climbed an octave in indignation. “I am an employee of Intergraphic, Incorporated. It’s my family’s company.”

  “That is your cover.”

  This was absurd. “You’re out of your mind.”

  The captain slapped the desk. “Don’t lie to me!”

  “I’m not lying! I do not—”

  “Explain this!” The captain reached to the floor behind his desk, out of sight, and lifted a cardboard box, displaying it as if doing a commercial.

  Kurt recognized it instantly. It was a box for one of the three batterybackups that Father Frank had provided to them after their meetingin the park. “That’s a box,” Kurt said. He could hear the petulance in his own voice.

  “We found it in your garage.”

  Kurt shrugged, continuing to look indignant. “There are many boxes in my garage.”

  “Indeed there were,” the captain said. Kurt did not miss the use of the past tense. “We’ve determined that this box held radio equipment. A battery backup.”

  It would have been more impressive detective work had the box not said BATTERY BACKUP. “It’s for the transmitters,” Kurt explained. “I alreadytold you that.”

  The captain rotated the open box to display a label that had been affixed to the bottom, and in that instant, Kurt understood.

  “What do you read here, Mr. Muse?”

  Kurt dropped his head, thoroughly deflated, thoroughly defeated.

  “Read it,” the captain said.

  Kurt cleared his throat. “It says, ‘Program Development Group.’ ”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Muse, I couldn’t hear you.”

  “It says ‘Program Development Group.’ ” This time he nearly shouted the words. Jesus God, he couldn’t believe the stupidity. The entire world recognized the Program Development Group (PDG) in Corozal to be the euphemism for the Central Intelligence Agency in Panama. They all knew it because Manuel Noriega was so thoroughly ensconced in the daily doings of the PDG over the years that he probablyknew his way to all the coffee pots in the place. Noriega’s primary currency with the United States had been his ability to tap every phone in Panama, and as a result, he’d accumulated countless millions in his personal fortune. What the Agency thought it was hiding when it addresseditems to the PDG was beyond Kurt.

  His mind raced back to the day just a few weeks before when they’d taken delivery of the battery backup from a go-between sent by Father Frank. Kurt had blown his stack with the CIA operative when he’d found half a dozen PDG labels all over the box. Kurt had torn them all off by the fistful as he chided the go-bet
ween for having been so reckless. “We’re trying to keep a low profile here,” Kurt had ranted. “This kind of shit can get people killed, you know? Suppose I had this box in my car and some goon pulls me over for a traffic stop. You want to see me get arrested? My God. This is precisely why we’ve never done business with you in the past.”

  Well, apparently, he’d missed one of the stickers.

  “Why don’t you sign this, Mr. Muse, and we can let you get along with your life, such as it will be.”

  The captain slid a confession across the desk. For the first time since he’d started interrogating Kurt, he was smiling.

  19

  Kimberly was beginning to feel human again. She had new shoes, a shirt and a pair of long pants, plus some underwear and just enough makeup to let her feel like a girl. But by the end of the secondday in Panama City, Florida, she was ready to go someplace where the Waffle House was not, in fact, the most happening place there was.

  Their keepers—Joey Skinner insisted that they were CIA, and that sounded right to Kimberly—were still jumpy about letting them go anywhere or do anything. They acted like assassins were lurking around every corner waiting to take them out. They also wouldn’t let them contact their mother by phone. They said that she was aware that they were safe, but that for some reason they weren’t safe to use the telephone.It didn’t make any sense to Kimberly, and frankly she was gettingtired of hanging around all the gloomy cloak-and-dagger types.

  She’d been watching the news a lot these past few days—what else was there to do?—hoping to hear some kind of story about her dad, but there was nothing. With all this hullabaloo and all the activity surroundingtheir escape from Panama, you’d have thought that the story would have at least been big enough for some mention on CNN.

  Yet, there was nothing.

  At the end of their second day, Father Frank announced to them that it was time to leave. He reviewed some security concerns: it was important that they all stay together, that they keep their conversations to a minimum, that they not speak of where they are coming from or where they are going, and in general that they should strive to be as invisibleas they could possibly be.

  Kimberly found herself respecting Father Frank for not even asking them if they had any questions. He acknowledged up front that he had no information to share with them. Unlike the others, though, it wasn’t a matter of not knowing; it was merely a matter of keeping the secrets secret. At one level it was annoying as hell, but on another it truly was irrelevant. They were going where they were going, and when they got there, everyone would know what the plan was. Knowing before then was just so much icing on the cake.

  They drove in the Jeeps to the airport at Fort Walton Beach, avoidingall the normal travel procedures—Immigration, boarding gate, the whole nine yards—and instead boarded the Boeing 727 via the exteriorstairway that led to the Jetway. It was not lost on Kimberly that on a commercial flight headed to Atlanta the first twenty-five seats in the coach section of the aircraft were empty while the rear of the aircraftwas packed with travelers.

  If there had ever been any doubt that the CIA was involved, that fact alone made the doubt go away.

  As they settled into their seats, Erik asked Kimberly why they were going to Atlanta when their mom was in Florida, but Kimberly told him to be quiet, citing the security speech they’d received at the hotel. The truth of it was she had no idea. Still, the one thing she was beginningto learn was that their handlers were most concerned about makingsure that she and her little brother ended up where they were supposed to be, on a schedule that only the handlers understood.

  The flight to Atlanta was entirely uneventful. Father Frank sat across the aisle from the Muse children, and as they flew, he seemed completelycomfortable lounging back in his seat and reading the in-flight magazine. This whole ordeal seemed as normal to him as just another day at the office.

  On final approach into Atlanta’s Hartsfield International Airport, though, he started to show signs of unease, shifting in his seat and checkinghis wristwatch two or three times a minute. His nervousness raised Kimberly’s anxiety as well, but not enough for her to share it with Erik or the family. Clearly, though, something interesting was about to happen.

  They touched down without incident, and after the pilot deployed the reversers and the brakes to bring the 727 to a halt, they taxied not to the terminal itself, but to a spot on the tarmac that was out of the normal traffic flow. When they were at a full stop, Father Frank stood in the aisle and made an announcement to the passengers.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m sorry for the delay, but at this time I need for the passengers who arrived with me to move forward and deplane to the waiting cars. Everyone else, please stay in your seats, and we’ll have you to your gate shortly. Thank you very much.” Typical of everythingabout Father Frank, the directions were short and to the point.

  As one, the group of refugees, who were still little more than strangers to each other, thanks to the isolation in which they’d been kept, rose and headed through the first-class cabin to the aircraft’s front door, where an internal stairway that Kimberly didn’t even know existedon these airplanes had been deployed. They walked down to the tarmac, where a line of four black vans sat waiting, their engines running.Kimberly and Erik entered first, as always, followed closely by the Skinners, and then by various other refugees, just so many strange faces.

  As soon as all the seats were filled, the van began to roll.

  To Kimberly’s eye, the driver didn’t appear to be that much older than she herself. She had blond hair and a bright smile. “Hi, everybody,how are you today?” Her voice seemed oddly cheerful under the circumstances and had a southern twang to it.

  The response from her passengers was mostly a grudging silence. “Well, I understand you’ve had a tough couple of days. I hope you all enjoy your time in Miami.”

  So that’s where we’re going, Kimberly thought.

  “Whoa!” said a voice from the back of the van. “What do you mean Miami?”

  Kimberly turned with the rest of the occupants to see a man in a business suit sitting among the refugees. He clearly was very American, and now that she thought about it, Kimberly realized that she’d never seen him before.

  “I’m not going to Miami,” the man said. “I’m going to Chicago.”

  All the cheer drained from the driver’s face. “Excuse me?”

  The guy in the suit copped an attitude. “You said we were going to Miami. I don’t want to go to Miami. I have to be in Chicago.”

  The driver’s eyes narrowed. “Are you part of the special charter group?”

  The guy shrugged. “I don’t think so.”

  The driver looked to the rest of the group. “Is he with you?”

  Kimberly shrugged. She’d been surrounded by so many refugees and handlers these past couple of days, she didn’t know one person from the next.

  The guy in the suit seemed to sense that he’d stirred a hornet’s nest. “Look, I didn’t mean to cause any trouble.”

  “Didn’t they tell everybody who was not part of this group to stay in their seats?”

  The guy shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess maybe. I was in the middleof a book. I saw people get up, so I followed.”

  The driver cursed under her breath and spoke into a portable radio, the speaker for which was plugged into her ear. She listened to the response,stopped the van, climbed out her door, and walked to the passengerdoor on the right-hand side. She pulled it open and motioned to the party crasher. “I’m sorry, sir, but I’m going to have to ask you to get out of the van.”

  The man’s face formed a giant O. “What?”

  “You’re not supposed to be here. I need you to exit the van.”

  The guy looked around to get his bearings. “We’re in the middle of the runway!”

  “No, sir, we’re in a taxiway, and someone will be by to pick you up shortly. Now I have to ask you to leave.”

  Kimberly could see the lea
ding edges of panic invading the guy’s face. “You can’t do that.”

  “Please don’t make this ugly, sir.” She positioned her arm in such a way as to show that she was armed.

  “This is outrageous!”

  “Now, sir.”

  “Okay, I’ll go to Miami.”

  “Now, sir. You can spend the night tonight in Chicago, or in a jail cell in Atlanta. You need to choose right this instant.”

  The last Kimberly saw of the man in the suit, he was cursing himselfpurple, shaking his fist, and kicking the pavement in the middle of a remote taxiway.

  It helped to know that someone was having nearly as bad a day as she.

  20

  Frustration levels within the intelligence, diplomatic, and military communities in Panama had climbed off the charts. The officialline from the Noriega regime still maintained that they’d never heard of a Kurt Muse and that they certainly did not have him in custody.It was as if the man had disappeared into the ether.

  But he hadn’t, and people with jobs significantly above the pay grades of anyone in Panama wanted to know exactly where Muse was, what charges he was being held on, and when the regime intended to give him back.

  Marcos Ostrander had been named for the moment as Kurt’s de facto lawyer, and he was doing everything he could to keep the heat turned all the way to high, but there was only so much one could do when the party on the other side of the bar refuses to admit that it has custody. He was expressing his frustration with a midlevel official of the U.S. embassy when the discussion turned to the injustice of it all. Here, these PDF goons get to travel at will, protected by the U.S. government,passing in and out of Miami as if it were a suburb of Panama City on visas that were virtually guaranteed to be granted, yet those same people had the audacity to physically hide an American citizen from his lawyer.

  It’d be a hell of a thing, they said, if these bastards were stuck in their own country for a while. Cancel those visas—cut the PDF power structure off from their mistresses and shopping sprees—and by God they bet there’d be action pretty soon.