Six Minutes To Freedom

by John Gilstrap

  Kimberly adjusted relatively well to the new home and school, but Erik was hating every minute of it. His As and Bs from Panama quickly transformed into Bs and Cs here in the States, and that was an area where no one but Erik—not even Father Frank with his seeming superpowers—could do anything to help.

  Marcos’s role in their lives was that of physical conduit between Kurt and his family. Once every other week, if not more often, Marcos would fly to West Palm and meet with the family, filling them in on how Kurt was doing, and pass along individual messages and thoughts. In addition, they talked on the phone regularly. If Kurt had concerns, Marcos would relay them, and vice versa, the communication taking place in those moments after Jim Ruffer’s physical exam.

  Through Marcos, Annie and the family knew that Kurt was at least safe. They knew that he was in a cell by himself and that while he was very lonely, he was at least not jeopardized by other more violent prisoners.Marcos would listen to Annie’s frustrations and occasionally offerstrategic advice on whom to call for action. On the other side, Marcos would help Kurt keep his head straight by passing along whateverhopeful tidbits he could share. Marcos’s special gift was to keep stormy seas calm.

  One day at a time, Annie told herself over and over again. Life needed to be lived, endured, and celebrated one day at a time.

  As April became May, and the Panamanian elections approached, Annie talked herself into believing that once the elections were over, there would no longer be a need to keep Kurt in prison. All indications showed that a new government would be swept into power, with Guillermo Endara at the helm and Vice President Billy Ford at his side. If the populace of the Isthmus were allowed an honest, direct vote, then the outcome was virtually assured.

  Of course, Panama had not seen honest elections in twenty years. That fact weighed heavily on the Bush administration as election day neared, and with the looming transfer of the Panama Canal as a backdrop,who better to assign as leader of the official observer delegation than Jimmy Carter—the president who had engineered the treaty in the first place?

  As soon as Annie heard that former president Carter had been chosenas the election overseer, she started working the phones, calling everyone she knew, and a hundred people she didn’t know, trying to raise Kurt’s profile high enough to bring it onto Carter’s agenda with Noriega. Surely, under the circumstances, with a simple wink and a gentle prod from Jimmy Carter—the great hero of the Panamanian people—the Pineapple would have no choice but to cough Kurt up, all in the spirit of international comity.

  It would have been so simple. But he didn’t do it.

  29

  Moreno sat across from Kurt in the interrogation room down the hall from his cell, his beefy face a mask of concern. “Mr. Muse,” he said, “I’m afraid I have some disturbing news for you.” In an unusual twist, Major Correa, the warden, was sitting in on the conversation.

  Kurt felt his heart sink. His mind went right to his family, right to the darkest scenarios that his mind could conjure. Something wrong with one of the kids, with Annie, or with his parents. And as the dark thoughts marched through his mind, he forced himself to shut them down. This was all a game, as Marcos Ostrander and Jim Ruffer had told him a dozen times. The DENI and their PDF bulldogs would do anything and everything to break his spirit, and he had to brace himselffor that.

  That kind of girding is a hell of a lot easier to do in the abstract than it is when the long face is staring right through you.

  “It seems as if your compatriots at the CIA are growing weary of you,” said Moreno. “It seems that you are an embarrassment. Our intelligencesources tell us that they are plotting to kill you.”

  The thought was absurd at its face, but that didn’t stop the fear from being compelling. “Is that so?” Kurt said, stalling for time as he tried to weigh the kernel of truth in Moreno’s premise.

  “We are concerned for your safety and believe that we need to protectyou from those who would cause you harm.”

  As Moreno spoke, Kurt began to understand the subtext more clearly than the words. What he heard was, “We’re tired of dealing with your frequent visitors.”

  “I see,” Kurt said. “And who are these people you would be protectingme from?”

  “Your visitors. I do not think that they can be trusted.”

  “You heard them as clearly as I did, Major. The Treaty allows these visits.”

  “Of course,” Moreno said, his voice the essence of reasonableness. “But if they are in fact causing you danger—”

  “I’ll take my chances,” Kurt said.

  Moreno exchanged looks with Correa and nodded. “I understand. If I were in your position, I would likely prefer the visitors as well. Truth be told, I think that it is reasonable for you to trust them. They, in fact, are not my greatest concern.”

  If the first approach doesn’t work, Kurt thought, always be ready with another one.

  “According to our intelligence sources, you are being poisoned.”

  Kurt’s jaw dropped. “Poisoned?” Jesus, surely they could do better than that.

  “Your meals,” Moreno said. “The Central Intelligence Agency is lacing the food brought to you from Fort Clayton with poison. They are killing you to keep you from sharing their secrets. To keep you from embarrassing them.”

  To the Latin mind, this ruse actually made sense. Theirs was a culturewhere honor and machismo was everything, and where it would be perfectly reasonable to kill someone to protect that honor. This was a stone cold bluff.

  “You want me to go back to eating cows’ heads? No thank you.”

  Moreno waved that off as absurd. “We would never expect you to do that. That would make no sense at all. Given a choice between what we serve and my own foot, I think I might choose my foot. I understandthat perfectly. No, what I’m proposing is for us to bring your food daily from a local restaurant. They would fix plates for you just as they do at Clayton, and we would make sure you get them every day. Truly, I believe it is the safer option.”

  Kurt had never heard such a line of crap in his whole life. It wouldn’t be two days before he was back to munching on brains and eyeballs. The bottom line was this: If the U.S. government had wanted to kill him, he would have been dead by now. End of story.

  He told Moreno with as much deference and gratitude as he could muster, that he was ready to take his chances and continue consuming the poisoned food.

  That night, starting at about one in the morning, the stomach cramps and diarrhea hit him hard.

  The first thing Ruffer noticed on his regular afternoon visit was the fear in Kurt’s eyes, the uneasiness of his demeanor. Responding to a specific request from Kurt, the doctor had brought along a fluffy green pillow (to replace the rolled up clothes that had been serving that function to date), but whatever was bothering Kurt seemed to trump the pleasure of receiving the gift.

  “Somebody’s trying to poison me,” Kurt said, his voice low. “I was up all night. It was terrible. Diarrhea, vomiting, cramps. Everything consistent with poisoning.”

  Ruffer tried to set his patient’s mind at ease. There were dozens of possible explanations for those symptoms that had nothing to do with poisoning.

  Kurt would hear none of it. “No, it’s poisoning. I’m sure of it. They told me to expect it.”

  “They told you?”

  He nodded. “Yesterday. Moreno was here and he and Correa told me to expect to be poisoned. They told me that it was you guys. The American government.”

  “But you know better.”

  “I can’t believe that the Agency would do that to me. I mean, there’s not a lot of love lost between me and the guys at Corozal, but I can’t believe that they’d try to poison me. I think the guys here are trying to poison me, and they’re trying to make me think it’s coming from you.”

  Ruffer sighed, took a moment to collect his thoughts. “Kurt, say the word, and I can have the food from Clayton cut off, and you can go back to prison food.”


  The very thought seemed to horrify Kurt.

  “That’s what I thought,” Ruffer said. “Listen, the PDF is going to do everything they can to mess with your mind, to turn you against the U.S. We’re the big bad guys now, you know. But let me tell you this: never once have they ever killed an American citizen in custody. Never. I really don’t think you have to worry about that. Can they make your life miserable by an occasional night of intestinal distress? Sure. But I really don’t think they’d even take it that far.”

  Kurt seemed reassured. At least a little.

  “And let’s not lose sight of the possibility of coincidence. This is not the most hygienic of places, and you are under considerable stress. It’s entirely possible that the discussion with Moreno and the fact of your illness are just freak happenstance.” The odds were long, but stranger things have happened.

  Kurt considered that. “I guess we can see what happens over the next couple of days.”

  “If you’d like, I can sample your blood,” Ruffer offered. “I can sample it regularly, if you’d like.”

  Kurt shook his head. “I don’t like getting stuck.”

  Ruffer didn’t blame him a bit. If the intestinal issues became a regularconcern, then he would take some additional precautions, but for the time being he thought it was best to let things run their course.

  “You just need to know that we’re here for you if you need something,Kurt. You need to keep faith in the Lord, in your family, and in your country. That’s the way to endure this thing.”

  Kurt gave him a long look. “It’s been a month. Any idea how long ‘this thing’ will have to be endured?”

  Ruffer sighed. “It’s getting more complicated. There have been severalarticles in Republica with all kinds of outlandish accusations of you being a spy. They’ve got you connected with DelValle as a subversive.This isn’t just about a radio station anymore. They’re hanging all kinds of charges on you.”

  “They’re not true.”

  “Of course they’re not true. But that doesn’t stop Noriega from padding the list. What I’m telling you, I guess, is you’re no longer a criminal. You’re a political prisoner. As you know, they’ve yet to file charges.”

  Kurt sighed and his shoulders sagged. It was not what he’d been hoping to hear. “Hey, listen, Marcos wants to talk to you about this stuff. I just mention it in case we run out of time. Now, let’s take a look in those ears.”

  Ruffer opened his medical kit and positioned it so that Kurt could see the inside of the lid. There, he’d taped the latest message from Annie:“Read Isaiah 43:1–5.”

  But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you. Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you, I give men in return for you, people in exchange for your life. Fear not, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you.”

  “I miss her, Jim,” Kurt said. “I miss them all. Tell Annie that my words to her are Hebrews 10:33–39.”

  But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to abuse and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion on the prisoners, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that you may do the will of God and receive what is promised. “For yet a little while, and the coming one shall come and shall not tarry; but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.” But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and keep their souls.

  Marcos Ostrander impressed Kurt as one of those people who could stroll through the middle of a riot and never flinch at the bricks, rocks, and bullets. If the entire spectrum of human emotions could be measuredon a ten-point scale, with suicidal depression measured at one and utter jubilation at ten, Marcos’s emotions ranged between 5.000 to 5.001. Scrupulously honest and mercifully blunt, he would absorb every dram of information Kurt gave him and faithfully relay every word that Annie and the kids would pass along. All without any writtennotes.

  During their meetings, always on the tail end of the Ruffer exams, Kurt and Marcos would slip easily between English and Spanish, preferring the former for the more sensitive family issues. No matter what the topic, they were always keenly aware that others might be listening.

  “You know the elections are coming soon,” Marcos said.

  Kurt smiled. “I guess we’ll see what kind of impact we had, huh?”

  Marcos’s return smile looked more like a grimace.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Marcos explained that the PDF had already started into their shenanigansto interfere with the vote. Noriega’s goons were rounding up as many dissenters as they could find, and they had started to forcibly assemble counterdemonstrations.

  Dropping his tone to nearly a whisper, Kurt said, “They took truckloadsof prisoners out of here yesterday. During the night, I overheard that they were going out to demonstrate in favor of the Pineapple.”

  Ostrander confirmed that that was what he had heard as well. Third world democracy in action. “I don’t want you to worry, Kurt, but you need to know that things are likely to get pretty hot on electionday. Keep your eyes open and your head down. We’ll stay on top of these guys to make sure that you don’t get sucked up into events here you don’t want to be.”

  30

  Back in his cell, his afternoon exercises completed, Kurt considered what Ruffer and Ostrander had told him, occupying himselfwith watching the activity in the prison yard. Over time, even from this distance, he was able to get a sense of the prisoners’ personalities. By and large, these were the worst of the worst when they were out on the street, but once combined in a concrete prison, people had to find their own way. Many, he observed, spent their time in the yard absorbedin studies of the Bible, hoping perhaps that the wonder of eternalsalvation might one day compensate for the awful suffering here in Modelo.

  Prayer, Kurt had learned, meant a lot when you had nothing left. Always a man of strong faith, his own devotion to God paled in comparisonto Annie’s. She was a rock in all things, and religion was no exception. That had been more her department than his when dealing with the children, but now that Kurt found himself to be a pawn in a game he didn’t fully understand, he found his faith getting stronger by the day. It helped that Annie had sent him an Episcopal Book of CommonPrayer with a picture of the family taped inside the front cover. Each day and each evening, as he prayed for strength and guidance, he could look at his family and feel the love they projected from thousandsof miles away.

  Other prisoners, he’d learned, were not so fortunate. Some simply lost their minds.

  A few days ago, he’d been at this very spot, peering out this very window, when the time came for the guard to clear the yard of prisoners.The guard was a fat pig of a man, spilling out of his sweat-stained uniform, and he herded the men as if they were cattle, swinging the length of rubber hose that so many had felt against their skin. “Move along now,” he ordered. “Be quick about it. I don’t have all day.”

  As all the men moved obediently toward the cellblock, one prisoner broke free and headed for the middle of the yard. “I am a sinner!” the prisoner yelled. “I am a sinner and a bad man, and I must atone for what I’ve done!”

  From where Kurt stood, Fatso seemed equal parts confused and annoyed.“Back in lin
e, Prisoner!” he commanded.

  “I must confess to Almighty God! I am scum! I am a rapist of the worst kind, and I’m sorry!”

  Suddenly, it was as if all other activity in the world had stopped, and all eyes were on this one crazed man. Laughter filled the air, but Fatso was not amused. He swung his hose threateningly through the air. “End this foolishness right now,” he commanded, “and get back into line before I make God’s wrath seem merciful.”

  “She was young and innocent,” the half-wit blathered on. “I watched her and I followed her, and when I got the opportunity, I had my way with her. I raped a little girl.”

  The laughter turned to taunting now, directed in equal measures to Fatso and the half-wit. They urged the prisoner to continue, even as they urged Fatso to do something about it.

  The half-wit continued to rant on and on, sharing the detail that the girl was having her period at the time of his attack, a detail that simultaneouslyrepulsed the crowd and prodded them into a higher frenzy.

  Angry now, Fatso came after him. The time for talking was over; the time for a beating had arrived.

  The half-wit was in the middle of quoting a Bible verse when Fatso took his first shot, swinging his hose in a wide arc that would have hurt like hell if it had connected. But the half-wit dodged it easily, ducking and spinning away from the guard and running to the far cornerof the yard.

  Fatso lumbered after him. As the prisoner continued to atone, the guard cursed a blue streak. He had revenge on his mind, but as he tried to run, gravity worked on his trousers, causing him to do an odd kind of waddle as he pulled at them to keep them from falling. When he was within range, he took another swing, but the half-wit dodged that one even more easily than the first.