The scar on Don Lorenzo’s cheek stood out white against his puce face and a vein was throbbing at his temple. He bowed his head as if in acquiescence, but in the next instant he launched himself at Harper. Harper had been expecting just such a move and he swayed to one side like a matador side-stepping an onrushing bull and threw a vicious short-arm punch at Don Lorenzo’s throat. He crashed to the floor, his hands clawing at his neck as he tried to draw breath. Harper dropped on him with both knees, forced his arm up his back until he heard the joint crack and held him there while Ricardo tied Don Lorenzo’s wrists with the bootlace tie that he tore from around his neck.
Ricardo and Harper took one of Don Lorenzo’s arm each and, keeping a wary eye out for any other retainers of the prison boss who might try to intervene, they marched him out of the yard and through the passageway that led to the piscina. Lupa followed them, her face expressionless.
At the brink of the pool, Don Lorenzo let out a cry of fear and tried to throw his weight back. ‘I beg you,’ he said, ‘don’t kill me. I have money, you can have as much as you want.’
‘Jódete,’ Ricardo said, ‘Fuck you. How many men have you watched drown in this pool? When I was a prisoner here myself I saw you beating a man with a baseball bat, as if he was a piñata. Then you threw him in the pool, stamped on his fingers as he tried to drag himself out and laughed when he went under and drowned. Now it’s your turn.’ He kicked him in the back of his knee, and as his leg buckled, Don Lorenzo lost his balance and, still with his hands tied behind him, fell face forward into the icy water of the pool. He broke surface, coughing and gasping, unable to use his hands and flailing with his legs with panic in his eyes. ‘Help me, for the love of god,’ he said. ‘I can’t swim.’
‘Then your end will be quicker than you deserve,’ Harper said, his face implacable.
Don Lorenzo went under and surfaced twice more, his struggles growing weaker as the exertion and the cold sapped his strength. When he went under again for the third time, nothing broke the surface but a thin stream of bubbles.
They waited until it was certain that he was dead, then turned away.
CHAPTER 16
‘Right,’ Harper said, at once all business again. ‘We’ve a real need for speed now.’
‘Lex,’ Lupa said. ‘I know the guards normally stay on the gate or go to the punishment cells and don’t come into the prison itself, but in the course of this evening they’ve heard gunfire and a couple of explosions and when they next do a head count, they’ll find there are…’ She hesitated. ‘I’ve lost count - nine bodies? Surely even they are going to have to do something about that?’
Harper nodded. ‘You’re probably right, so we need to give them something else to think about before they come looking for us, all guns blazing. So, as they say in all the best cowboy movies, let’s head them off at the pass.’ He pulled the keys to the punishment cells from his pocket.
‘Why did you want those?’ Lupa said. ‘We’ve already got Scouse out.’
‘We did, but there are still a few other guys in there and if they aren’t completely wrecked by beatings and hunger, they’ll be very useful to us.’
They both gave him blank looks and he smiled. ‘We’re going to recruit a beggars army to help us fight our battle with the guards. We’re going to lead a revolt by all those half-naked, starving, lowest of the low who have been locked in the punishment cells or forced to sleep on the concrete and stone floors, begging for scraps of food and performing any task to keep them alive. So we’ll set free the men in the punishment cells, round up all the other no-hopers and then I’ll talk to them, with you two translating.
He tossed Ricardo the keys. ‘You let those guys out and tell them that if they want to stay out of those cells, they need to come with you. Lupa and I will round up the others and we’ll see you in the yard of the Cancha section in twenty minutes.’
When Ricardo entered the yard with a dozen prisoners from the punishment cells straggling behind him, he found Harper and Lupa already there with another twenty men they had rounded up. Harper jumped up on an upturned barrel outside the bar and began to address them, pausing every few seconds to allow Lupa and Ricardo to translate. ‘No one in authority cares what happens to you or goes on in this prison,’ he said, ‘as long as nothing spills onto the streets and threatens their power. Now, with your help, we’re going to overthrow the guards and when we do, you’ll be left with two choices. You could go through the gates, get back on to the streets and take your chances out there, until the police arrest you again and you get thrown back in here to be abused by a new group of guards. The alternative is to stay here and take your turn at running the place.’
There were rumbles of disbelief and disagreement as this was translated, but Harper held up his hand for silence and carried on. ‘The chief warden and the guards aren’t paid, because the governor pockets their pay from the government and he never shows up at the jail at all. So he doesn’t care who’s guarding it as long as there are no mass break-outs or bad headlines that might cause him trouble. Fernandez and his guards are vicious, even murderous, and as corrupt as hell. They’ve been taking bribes, shaking down you and your families, and forcing some of your women, wives and daughters into prostitution, while you live in worse conditions than their dogs. So it’s time to shake up the system. We’re going to take them down. Help us do it and you can take their places, wear their uniforms, guard the gates and pocket the bribes that used to go to them. Some of the guards will have to be killed, and those that aren’t, you can put in what used to be your cells, so they can see for themselves what your lives have been like.’
One of them raised his hand. ‘But they have guns and we’ve got nothing.’
Harper held up one of the improvised guns in one hand and one of the bamboo grenades in the other. ‘We have weapons, we have the element of surprise and we outnumber them three or four to one. So we have enough - more than enough.’ He paused, letting the silence build. ‘Now, are you with us? Anyone who is, step forward and come and stand beside me. The rest stay where you are and we’ll take you back to your cells or the concrete floors where you’ve been sleeping what’s left of your lives away.’
There was little movement at first, other than a shuffling of feet, but then one prisoner and then another crossed the yard to stand beside him. There was another pause, during which he wondered if he’d blown it, but then two, three and then four more men moved across. They were followed by almost all the rest, leaving just two men standing there. ‘Last chance to join us,’ Harper said and one of them shuffled across to join the ranks. The other gave a slow shake of his head, turned and walked away.
Harper raised his voice and shouted after him. ‘Keep your mouth shut and nothing will happen to you. Tell the guards what’s coming and you’re dead.’ He turned back to his army of recruits. ‘Okay, some of you will be armed, but the main job of the rest of you is just to apply pressure and create panic. Keep them off guard, hemmed in, pushing and jostling them, and make plenty of noise as well. Let’s see them flinch and make them sweat. Right,’ he said. ‘Now let’s have a show of hands. Who wants revenge on the chief warden and the guards?’
Every hand shot up.
‘Who can handle a gun?’
Only a couple of hands went down.
‘Now why does that not surprise me?’ Harper said, laughing to himself. ‘All right - who’s killed a man?’
Still about half of the hands remained up.
‘Okay. Now we don’t have enough weapons for all of you, so I’m going to give the home-made pistols we have to the three guys who look to me most likely to use them - and shoot accurately - if it proves necessary. The rest of you can take small weapons, like coshes and blackjacks, so long as they can be carried concealed. If you walk out there carrying a baseball bat, then the game will be up before it’s begun. But whether or not you are carrying a weapon, you all have an equally important role to play. So here’s what I need you to do: I wan
t you to wait for my signal and then begin to walk through the passageway and out into the main courtyard. Don’t go as a bloc, head out there in twos and threes with a few seconds’ gap between each group. Once you’re in the courtyard, make your way towards the gates and begin to surround the guards there, but you still all need to be slow and measured in your movements. If you rush the guards, you’re likely to panic them, in which case they may draw their weapons and start shooting before you’re able to do anything about it. So take your time and don’t offer them any immediate or visible threat. Let them think that there’s at least a chance that you’re all just joining in the usual clamour at the gates, trying to shout to relatives and friends, or slip the guards a bribe to let some package or other through. But keep moving forward, denying them space, crowding and jostling them. The guys at the front need to include the ones with the weapons, but they’re only to be used as a last resort, if and when the guards try to draw their pistols. The front rank also needs to include men who are willing to try to disarm the guards if that happens, either by knocking them out before they can draw and shoot, or by taking their guns from them and using them to threaten them and, if necessary kill them.’
‘And where will you be señor, while all this is going on?’ one of them asked, a man with the battered looks and mean air of a bar-room brawler. ‘Will you be sipping Singani and waiting for us to do your dirty work for you?’
‘No, I’ll be dealing with the guards with rifles up in the towers. If you think you know how to do that and have a better chance than me of coming out of it alive, then you’re welcome to try.’ Harper kept staring at the man until he dropped his gaze. ‘However, you look like you can handle yourself in a fight, so make sure you’re in the front rank when you’re crowding around the guards.’ His glance swept over the rest of them. ‘Anyone else got any other objections?’
No one spoke and after waiting a few more seconds, he said ‘Right, just two more things I need to emphasise to you. Firstly, if this works - and there’s no reason why it won’t - in a few hours from now, you could be in charge of San Pedro. The obvious temptation - and I’m sure it will be your first instinct - will be to throw the gates wide open and let everyone out. But if you do that, even your shambolic government here will not be able to ignore a tidal wave of thugs, armed robbers and murderers being unleashed on to the streets of La Paz, and they will be forced to take action. They will almost certainly not only bring in more police but the army as well to restore order and round up the escapees, and they won’t be too choosy about the methods they use or the casualties they cause.’
He paused to let that sink in before continuing. ‘It also means that your chance to run the place and start collecting the bribes and kick-backs that the guards have been pocketing will have gone. So my very strong recommendation to you is that the first thing you should be doing if we do manage to overthrow the current regime is to secure the gates and stop a mass escape.
‘My second recommendation is this: You know what it’s like to be at the bottom of the heap - that’s where you are right now, isn’t it? So if and when you get to be the ones who are collecting the bribes and kick-backs, how about pledging to yourselves and the other inhabitants of this place that you’ll share some of the wealth around, so that every inmate benefits to some extent from the money you’re collecting. It’s not just a matter of doing the right thing, because if everyone has a stake in the system and is earning a few Bolivianos from it, then visitors will go unmolested, the overall amount of money available will increase and everyone will be happy - or happier anyway. Not only that, but your job of running the place will be a whole lot easier. Okay?’ The men nodded and no one seemed to disagree with him. ‘Right, then let’s get to work.’
He first made them go through a series of rehearsals, using the entrance to the passageway leading out of the yard to stand in for the front gates, with most of the members of his ragged army practising crowding in and jostling a few of the other inmates who were posing as the guards. ‘That’s good enough,’ he said at last. He glanced at his watch. ‘It’ll have to be, because we’re getting tight for time. He took the last of his once fat bundle of dollars out of his pocket. ‘Ricardo, shake the guy who owns the bodega there awake, and buy everyone a drink - a little Dutch courage will help things along - but make sure no-one has more than a couple, because we want them aggressive, not pissed and passed out.’
The eastern sky was already greying at the approach of dawn and while their beggars’ army fuelled up as the sleepy-eyed owner of the bodega sold more alcohol than he had in months, Harper, Ricardo and Lupa discussed the next move. ‘We can march them into the main yard,’ Harper said, ‘but like I just told that bruiser, our big problem is going to be the two guards in the watchtowers. We’re going to have to find a way to deal with them because both of the towers overlook the yard and the gates, and are in line of sight of each other, giving them cross-cover if one is attacked. Both of the guards are armed with rifles, and since those towers are at least twenty metres above the ground and these pop-guns-’ He held up one of their primitive pistols. ‘Only have a killing range of four or five metres, we need to work out a way to deal with them. I’m confident I can climb up one of the towers undetected by the guard in it and take him out, but unless the other guy is asleep on the job, I’m likely to get a bullet between my shoulder blades while I’m doing it.’
He thought for a few moments. ‘How’s your throwing arm, Ricardo?’
‘What about asking me as well?’ Lupa said, indignant.
‘Look, Lupa, this isn’t the moment for a debate about sexism. Blokes tend to be better at throwing things because they’ve got longer, more powerful arms and they tend to have spent a greater part of their youth playing stupid ball games.’ He gave a sly grin. ‘But when I want someone to make a dress for the chief warden or give make-up lessons to the guards, don’t worry, you’ll be first in line.’
She laughed despite herself. ‘You’ll pay for that, you sexist pig.’
‘So Ricardo?’ Harper said.
‘I can throw.’
‘Do you think you can light two or three of these bamboo bombs and throw them so they land close enough to one of the watch towers to make the guard in there shit his pantalones and keep his head down? You don’t have to be able to land one actually in the tower, just lob them on to the roof close enough to make him duck.’
‘Lex,’ Ricardo said, ‘I could do that in my sleep. Even Lupa could manage it.’
Lupa switched her furious scowl from Harper to her brother, but said nothing.
‘If you can do that on my signal,’ Harper said, ‘and keep that guard’s head down for about twenty seconds, that’ll give me enough time to shin up the other tower, wipe out the guard in that one, and then use his rifle to get rid of the other one. And without the guys with rifles up in the towers to pick them off, our ragtag army should be more than enough for the guards on the gates. There are only twelve altogether, we’ll have taken two of them out, and at least four others will be off duty or asleep, so they’ll have a maximum of six guards to deal with. Odds of five to one, you’d bet the farm on that, wouldn’t you?’
‘I guess we’ll have to,’ Lupa said, ‘if we ever want to get out of this place.’
‘Lupa, I’ve two tasks for you. The first is to marshal our army so they don’t all forget their instructions and go flooding out into the main courtyard together. The second is to follow close behind the last group, then move straight across to the western side of the yard where the warden’s office is, and cut the phone line there. It runs across the wall and in through the window frame of his office.’ He held out his knife to her. ‘Use this.’
As the morning light began to strengthen, they set the plan in motion. As arranged, Harper left Lupa to control the beggars’ army, releasing them in twos and threes to make their slow way into the main courtyard. Ricardo went with the first group, walking behind them and using them as a screen to conceal the bam
boo grenades he was carrying tucked inside his waistband under his shirt. He took up position in the main courtyard close to the foot of one of the watchtowers and in a place where the long shadows cast by the rising sun partly concealed him from the gaze of the guard in the other tower. He laid the grenades in a row on the ground behind him, took out his disposable lighter and then waited for the signal.
Harper climbed the stairs to the wooden balcony on the first floor of one of the sections near the front of the prison. He grabbed an armful of washing that had been draped over the rail to dry, then took the steps to the top floor and climbed the rickety ladder that led to the roof, used by prisoners every day either to spread their washing or the painted children’s toys some made, on the corrugated metal panels where they could quickly dry in the sun and the perpetual wind from the Altiplano.
Lupa had followed the last of the beggars’ army into the main courtyard and strolled across to the far side. Choosing her moment, when the guards were already distracted by the growing numbers of prisoners crowding around them, she reached up with the knife, slid the point of it under the phone cable just below the chief warden’s windowsill and severed it with the razor-edged blade.
Harper walked out across the roof towards the foot of the other tower, spreading the washing he had gathered as he went, trying to look as casual as possible. He waited until he saw the guard looking away from him, his attention caught by the growing numbers of prisoners flowing into the main courtyard. Harper dropped the rest of the washing, hurried to the foot of the tower and began to climb it on the side furthest from the courtyard and the other guard tower on the far side.
As they had arranged, Ricardo began a silent count as soon as he saw Harper disappear from sight. Harper too was also mentally counting down from fifty as he scanned the tower for handholds. It had brick pillars at each corner, supporting the flat concrete roof above it, but with a glazed window on the side facing outwards, beyond the prison. The open sides on the other three faces were shielded only by waist-high wrought iron railings. The brickwork was newer than much of the prison’s other masonry, but it was a short climb to reach the bottom of the railings and, using the clamps that held the wiring for the floodlight that was fixed to the tower and the places where the mortar between the bricks had begun to crumble enough to give finger-holds, it was easy for Harper to climb it and reach up to grasp the bottom rail.
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