Breakout: A Heart-Pounding Lex Harper Thriller

by Stephen Leather

  ‘Maybe tomorrow night,’ Harper said. ‘I’m going to turn in now and I’d advise you to do the same, because first thing tomorrow, we have to start looking for Scouse.’

  ‘So where do we begin?’ Lupa asked.

  ‘We’ll start with the customs guy that Risk Reduction were paying off.’

  ‘And how do we find him?’

  ‘Well, we’ve got his name - Alvaro Lopez - and his photograph.’ He pulled the mugshot Standish had given him out of his pocket and passed it to her. ‘And we know where he works, don’t we? So it shouldn’t be too hard to track him down.’

  CHAPTER 7

  Alvaro Lopez had just finished his shift at the airport that afternoon and was walking away from the terminal on his way home, when two men, a Bolivian and a fair-skinned Westerner, appeared at either side of him. A beautiful young Bolivian woman then stepped out in front of him, barring his way.

  ‘Qué esta pasando?’ he said. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘No es nada - It’s nothing’ Lupa said. ‘We just want a word with you.’

  Harper and Ricardo steered him away from the entrance to the terminal and backed him up against the steel and glass facade of the building. Then with Lupa translating for him, Harper began interrogating him. ‘I’m with Risk Reduction,’ he said, not all together truthfully. ‘I want to know what happened when Scouse Davies came through here a few weeks ago.’

  Alvaro shot a nervous glance to either side as if seeking an escape route, but said ‘I already told the company about this. I was on duty, but it was very busy - his flight was one of three that had all just arrived - and he didn’t come to my desk at all. So I didn’t see him and I really don’t know what happened to him.’

  Harper said nothing, studying the bead of sweat trickling down Alvaro’s forehead. He knew that in interrogations it was often better to stay quiet and let the tension build because often the victim would then begin to blurt out information, just to break the oppressive silence.

  ‘I swear that’s all I know,’ Alvaro said.

  Harper waited a few more moments and then gave a slow shake of his head. ‘Okay. I don’t believe you, so there are two ways this can go. Firstly, I give you your usual payment.’ He pulled a $500 bill from his pocket and showed it to him. ‘And you tell me what really happened. Or…’ He tightened his grip on Alvaro’s arm, keeping his voice low and level, but there was no mistaking the menace in his eyes. ‘Or my friends and I will take you for a walk into that car park over there. And if we do, you won’t get your $500 and by the time you get home tonight, your wife and your children will have difficulty in recognising you - and that’s always assuming you get home at all. So, one way or the other, you are going to tell me what I want to know, aren’t you? So which is it going to be?’

  Alvaro looked into Harper’s eyes and what he saw there was enough to persuade him. ‘All right, I did see Señor Davies that day,’ he said, his words falling over each other in his desperation to placate Harper. ‘He came to my desk as normal, but at once my supervisor stepped in and told me to take a coffee break. I told him that I wasn’t due a break for another hour but he ignored me and told me it was an order and that I had to go.’ He gave Harper a pleading look. ‘He is my boss, what else could I do? When I got back there was no sign of Señor Davies or my supervisor. That is all I know, you must believe me.’

  ‘What is your supervisor’s name and where does he live?’

  ‘He is called Javier Flores. He has a house in Calle 15 in Calacoto in La Zona Sur - the Southern District of La Paz.’

  Lupa gave a low whistle. ‘That’s a very fancy address for a man on a customs officer’s salary,’ she said.

  ‘Perhaps he comes from a wealthy family,’ Harper said, dripping sarcasm. ‘But let’s find out, shall we?’

  He released his grip on Alvaro’s arm and handed him the $500. ‘This will be the last time we meet, Alvaro, unless someone tips off your boss that we’re going to pay him a visit tonight. Do we understand each other? Good. Vamos!’

  Rather than hire a car, which would have required paperwork and records being kept by the hire company, Harper followed his usual practice of finding a second-hand car lot in a down-market district and then buying a car for cash. He found a Mercedes saloon that seemed to fit the bill. The bodywork was scraped and dented but the engine and gearbox were still in good nick, the tyres had some tread left on them and, best of all, the brakes worked, so he decided it would be easily reliable enough for the limited use he’d be putting it to. Lupa haggled the salesman down a couple of hundred Bolvianos before Harper handed over the cash from his backpack.

  Ricardo drove them out to the Southern District. The narrow streets, industrial buildings and cramped-looking apartments and mud brick houses in the inner suburbs of La Paz slowly gave way to broad, tree-lined avenues and large houses with high stone walls. They parked fifty metres down the street from the address Alvaro had given them and then settled down to wait.

  CHAPTER 8

  It was dusk when Javier Flores drove along Calle 15 that evening and pressed the button to open the steel security gates at the entrance to his property. Mariachi music was blaring from his car radio and he neither heard nor saw the black-clad masked figures that emerged from the shadows on the opposite side of the street and ran towards him. He only became aware of the danger when the driver’s door was suddenly thrown open. He was dragged out of the car and as he opened his mouth to shout for help, he was silenced and knocked to the ground by a fierce blow. A ball of cloth was forced into his mouth and a hood was placed over his head. His assailants pinned him face down in the street, lashed his wrists and ankles together with plastic ties, and then threw him into the back of his own car. Someone jumped into the back seat next to him, the others - there must have been two more, because he heard both front doors slam shut - got into the front, and then they were driving off up the street. The whole thing had taken less than fifteen seconds.

  They drove for what seemed to him like an hour, first on tarmac city streets and then on increasingly rough and rutted dirt roads before finally coming to a halt. Flesh creeping and his pulse rising as panic gripped him, he heard his captors get out of the car. There were a few moments of silence, broken only by the metallic tick of the cooling engine, and then the door next to his head was opened and he was dragged out of the car. He felt dry, gritty soil beneath him as he was dropped to the ground and he shivered as the cold wind of the open Altiplano knifed through him.

  Through the thick material of the hood covering his head, he heard a woman’s voice. ‘SeñorFlores, we are going to ask you some questions. On your answers rests whether you will live or die. Please believe me that we already know many of the answers, so if you lie, we will know that and you will die. Entiendes?’

  ‘Si, entiendo - I understand.’

  He heard a man’s voice then, speaking English, and the woman then translated his words into Spanish. ‘Some weeks ago, an Englishman called Scouse Davies flew into La Paz on a flight from Madrid via Lima. He had made a similar journey several times before. In his flight case was a $50,000 ransom payment for a kidnapping and in his back-pack was the usual $500 bribe for the customs officer to chalk his bags and wave him through. However, on this occasion, you intervened. You made that customs man take a break and dealt with the passenger yourself. He did not arrive at his destination and has not been seen since then. Now, please understand me: we do not care about the money he was carrying - what happened to it is your business - but we do care very much about what happened to Scouse Davies. So think very carefully before you reply to my next question, because there will be no second chances. If you lie even once, then we will kill you and leave you here, and when the sun comes up in the morning, the condors will find that they have some fresh carrion to feast on.’

  ‘Please, I beg you, I have a wife and children.’

  ‘Not to mention a house that must have needed a lot of bribes to pay for. So tell us the truth and you w
ill see them all again tonight. Lie and no one will ever even know what happened to you.’

  ‘It was the Brazilian cartel, the Red Command.’ His voice cracked with fright. ‘I was forced to do it. They said…’

  The woman interrupted him at once. ‘Señor Flores, please do not waste your breath or our time. We do not care why you did it. We only want to know what happened to Scouse Davies.’

  ‘I had been told he would be carrying a lot of money. I found $500 in his back-pack and had him arrested by two policemen who were waiting nearby. They are also in the pay of the Brazilians. We took him into the interrogation room and I opened the flight case and found the money. As instructed, I gave the policemen the $500 from the backpack but I at once delivered the flight case with the rest of the money to a member of the Red Command, who was waiting in the arrivals hall. I did not see the Englishman again after I left the room.’

  ‘But you know what happened to him, don’t you? Was he killed?’

  ‘Please, if the Red Command find out that I have spoken to you, they will kill me.’

  ‘I’m sure they will,’ the man said, ‘but if you don’t tell us what you know right now, we will also kill you and, unlike the cartel, we’re in a position to do so immediately.’

  Flores took a deep breath and then the words began to tumble out of him in a rush. ‘They beat him up but they didn’t kill him. They said he was worth more alive.’

  ‘But there’s been no ransom demand. Why would they keep him alive, if not for that?’

  ‘I don’t know. They said they had un destino especial - a special fate - in mind for him, but I don’t know what it was, I swear.’

  ‘And where did they take him?’

  ‘If they find out what I told you, I’m a dead man.’

  ‘You’re wasting our time, Señor Flores. You had better hope that they don’t find out but you are going to tell us what we want to know.’

  Flores hesitated a few moments longer, then bowed his head. ‘They took him to San Pedro.’

  ‘What’s San Pedro?’ the man said, but the woman held up a hand. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll explain later.’

  ‘That is all I know,’ Flores said. ‘And I have told you the truth, I swear it.’

  ‘Let us hope so, Señor,’ said the woman. ‘Or we will be paying you another visit and the next time there will not be a happy ending for you.’

  They threw him back into the back seat of the car and began the drive out of the desert and back towards La Paz. When they pulled up near his house, the man pressed the barrel of his Colt against Flores’s neck as they cut the ties bindings his wrists and ankles. ‘You are nearly safe Señor Flores,’ he said. ‘Lie still and don’t do anything foolish now. After we get out of the car, you need to count to fifty before you sit up and remove the hood. Entiendes?’

  ‘Si.’

  The doors slammed and he was left alone. A few moments later he heard another engine start and a car drive off, but he remained flat on the back seat, counting silently to himself until he reached fifty. Only then did he sit up, remove the hood and wipe the sweat from his eyes. He looked around to make sure that his captors really had gone and only then, when he had done so, did he begin to shake and felt tears pouring down his cheeks. It was some minutes before he had enough of a grip on himself to drive the last few metres to his home.

  CHAPTER 9

  ‘So, tell me, what is San Pedro?’ Harper said as Ricardo drove them away.

  ‘It’s a prison,’ Lupa said. ‘In Spanish it’s called El Penal de San Pedro, and it is the most notorious prison in South America.’

  ‘Bloody hell, so he’s in jail,’ Harper said, ‘which means I’m probably going to have to go in there to get him out. And I’ve heard of plenty of people breaking out of prison, but having to break into one? That’s going beyond weird.’

  ‘You won’t need to do that,’ Lupa said. ‘It’s not just a jail, it’s also a tourist attraction. They even run tours of San Pedro.’

  Harper gave her an incredulous look. ‘You’re kidding me, aren’t you? Bloody hell, now I truly have heard everything.’

  ‘At one time the tours were official,’ she said. ‘And a few years back, visiting the prison used to be one of the most popular tourist attractions in La Paz - sixty or seventy people were going in every day on organised tours, with guides who’d been prisoners themselves to show them around and serving, long-term prisoners acting as security to make sure nothing bad happened to them while they were in there. For an extra payment, the tourists could even stay overnight, if they wanted to find out what it was like to spend a night there. They had some great travellers’ tales to entertain their friends when they went home and the guards got a bribe from everyone doing one of the tours, so everybody was happy.’

  ‘I can understand why people might be curious enough to see what it was really like on the inside of a prison,’ Harper said. ‘But why the hell would anyone want to stay the night?’

  Lupa flashed him an amused look. ‘For the cocaine, of course. The best and purest you can get in South America is made in San Pedro. Western tourists stumbling out of the prison every morning, high as kites, weren’t the best advertisement for Bolivia, but the authorities turned a blind eye to the tours until two men were stabbed and a woman tourist was raped in San Pedro. The other inmates dealt with the perpetrator - he was beaten and then drowned- but because the victims were Yanquis it became a huge international incident and the bad publicity forced the government to intervene. They banned the official tours, but unofficial ones still go on. You just pay a guide to take you in and a bribe to the guards to allow it and that’s it - you’re in - though prices have gone up and there are still some risks.’

  ‘A little while ago two young American tourists went on a tour with a so-called guide who then did a runner,’ Ricardo said. ‘When they found their way back to the gates, the guards claimed they were prisoners trying to escape and they had to pay a thousand bucks each to get out. So anyone can walk in, but getting out can be more complicated. So if you want to see the prison and find out if your friend Scouse is there, taking a tour would definitely be an easier way than trying to break in. And if you want to know anything before then, you can ask me - when I was imprisoned for credit card fraud in La Paz, that’s where I was jailed.’

  ‘Are there many gringos in La Paz?’ Harper asked.

  ‘There were none when I was there. So if your friend is among them, don’t worry, we’ll find him.’

  CHAPTER 10

  Before they set off for the prison the next morning, Harper held a briefing session over coffee and empanadas at a street café they had used the previous day. ‘The first thing I need to do is walk round the place,’ he said. ‘So I can get a good look at it and check for any potential weak spots or dangers. Then, if you’re absolutely sure we can get in, Ricardo, let’s take a tour of the inside too, because until we know where Scouse is being held and how he’s being guarded, we can’t work out a plan of how to get him out of there.’ He paused. ‘I do have one worry, though. Correct me if I’m wrong, but my impression is that any Westerner is seen as a potential kidnap and ransom target. So I don’t understand why someone would be holding a man who came into the country with $50,000 in a flight case without trying to raise at least the same amount by ransoming him. It doesn’t make sense to me, unless they have another plan for him, and I’m at a loss to think what that could be.’

  When they’d finished their coffees, Ricardo led the way through the centre of La Paz towards San Pedro. They crossed the busy Avenida América and soon afterwards Ricardo turned down a narrow alley. The sign hanging on the wall at the entrance read Calle Melchor Jimenez. The alley was lined with shops, many selling brilliantly coloured rugs, blankets and traditional clothes. ‘This place is known as Mercado de las Brujas - the Witches’ Market,’ Lupa said.

  ‘Why’s it called that?’ Harper said, but then had his answer as, past the clothes and fabric shops, they came to smaller shops a
nd stalls, selling small figurines of Inca-like figures, plants and herbs, dried frogs, snakes and starfish, bird skulls, owl feathers, armadillo skins and a myriad other objects. All were run by women, sitting cross-legged in the dust at the side of the street, and all were wearing the traditional black bowler hats and had pouches of coca leaves at their waists.

  ‘We call those women the yatiri,’ Lupa said. ‘You’d probably call them shamans or witches. They make potions and spells that are used in traditional Aymara rituals. You can buy charms to bring you health and wealth, love potions, aphrodisiacs and even poisons too. Tourists buy them - apart from the poisons - as souvenirs and curiosities, but to Aymara people these things have real power.’

  ‘And what the hell are those?’ Harper said, pointing to some, withered looking, mummified animals hanging on one stall. They had white fur and long, spindly legs, but were so strange looking they appeared to be more like puppets than actual animals.

  ‘They’re llama foetuses,’ Lupa said.

  ‘Bloody hell, what do people do with them? They don’t eat them, surely?’

  ‘No, they bury them under the foundations of buildings.’

  ‘You’re kidding me? Why would they do that?’

  ‘It’s no joke. Belief in the old ways is still very strong. You’ll even see yatiri women waiting outside the cathedral and the churches on Sundays, selling potions and rituals to people as they emerge from church.’

  ‘So their customers are hedging their bets?’ Harper said. ‘A Mass for the Christian god, and a ritual for the old faith too, so whichever one ultimately proves to be the one true religion, they’ve already paid their dues.’

  She shrugged. ‘People here are highly superstitious and the Aymara believe that there are many spirits inhabiting our world, whose favour can be won by making offerings. There are spirits of the sun - Inti - the mountains - Apus - the trees, the waters, and many more, but the most powerful of them all is Pachamama, the earth mother. You’ll have seen people here shaking out the last bit of their coffee onto the ground in front of their feet? They’re not getting rid of the dregs, they’re sharing their drink with Pachamama, giving her an offering. Her blessing must be sought for any disturbance of the ground, like mining, digging or building, by making an offering to her. So if you’re building a new house, you make a gift to placate Pachamama and bless the site where it is going to be built, by burying a llama foetus in its foundations. That is enough of an offering for a house but if you’re building something larger, you need a bigger offering, like a whole llama carcass. And for even larger buildings - mansions, apartment blocks, factories, or skyscrapers offices - even a whole adult llama carcass may not be seen as a sufficient offering. If any sort of animal sacrifice isn’t considered enough, there is another option, because there are always rumours here of people being sacrificed instead - a salute to our Inca roots.’