Last Resort

by Susan Lewis

  Penny’s eyes were wide with fear; her hands were shaking uncontrollably. ‘Who are they, Sammy? Did they tell you—’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Sammy wailed. ‘They just want you to . . . Hang on . . .’ Penny could hear muffled voices at the other end, then Sammy came back on the line. Her voice sounded slightly stronger now, but there was no mistaking her terror. ‘They said that someone will be coming to see you in the next hour and you’re to tell them where Christian is. If you don’t, Pen, they said they’re going to take me out to sea and leave me there.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ Penny cried, closing her eyes as her mind started to reel. ‘Sammy, listen to me. Listen.’ Her chest was so tight she could barely breathe. ‘Do you think you can get away from them?’

  ‘No!’ Sammy shouted. ‘There are four of them! They’re right here in the room with me! Oh, Pen, please, you’ve got to tell them where Christian is.’

  The vision of Christian standing alone on that rocky road on the hillside was brutally sharp in Penny’s mind, splitting her conscience. ‘Tell them,’ she said, ‘tell them that I don’t know where he is. He left here today, and he didn’t say where he was going.’

  She waited with her heart in her throat as Sammy relayed the message.

  ‘They don’t believe you, Pen. They say you know where he is . . .’ Her voice suddenly crescendoed into a scream. ‘Penny, please,’ she begged. ‘They’ve got guns! They’re going to kill me . . .’

  ‘Sammy! Sammy!’ Penny cried. ‘Sammy, are you still there? Oh my God,’ she sobbed, banging the connectors. ‘Sammy! Sammy!’ But there was no reply.

  Fumbling the receiver back on to the hook, she stared sightlessly ahead, her heart thumping so hard it hurt. What the hell was she going to do? It wasn’t as simple as choosing between Sammy’s life or Christian’s freedom, for if she turned him in now she would be putting her own life at risk. But what was she thinking? There was no question it had to be Sammy. Sammy was her sister, her own flesh and blood, who had committed no crime, was an innocent pawn in this unholy mess that had somehow reached across the globe to the distant islands of the Caribbean. Pressing her hands to her face, she tried to stop the ragged sobs breaking in her throat. How was she going to bring herself to do this to Christian when she had sworn she would never turn him in; when he had trusted her to come back here alone, had given her her freedom at such heartbreaking cost to himself? What was she doing to his life? How had it ever come about that she was responsible for so much pain and bitter regret? But whatever happened she couldn’t let Sammy pay the price. Surely Christian would understand that. Please God, he had to understand.

  Her only hope now, as she waited for the arrival of the people Sammy had mentioned, was that they would come before the call from Benny Lao. If they didn’t she had no idea what she would do. But what could she do other than pass on the message? Should she warn whoever called for Christian that he was in danger? But if she did that, what would happen to Sammy?

  As another wave of panic swept through her she got to her feet and started to pace the room. Who, in God’s name, could these people be who were holding Sammy? How had they even found out about her? How had they traced her to this hotel? Had Christian told them? But that was absurd when it was patently obvious that it was him they were after. Oh, Jesus Christ, what was going on? She couldn’t make sense of anything any more. Perhaps it was the FBI or the DEA. But that was even more absurd, for they didn’t go around holding innocent people hostage in order to get their man. Or did they? What the hell did she know about these things? But if it wasn’t them, then that only left the Chinese. She felt suddenly sick with fear at the very idea that Sammy could be in their hands . . . ‘Oh God!’ she cried aloud, clutching her hands to her head. ‘We’re all going to end up dead!’

  The time dragged slowly by, each minute inching her fear further and further into the realms of terror. She tried to fight it, tried to force herself to stay calm. To lose control now would help no one and only increase the danger. But her feeling of helplessness was total, for there was no one she could call, no one she could turn to for help. Everything would happen in less than an hour and even David would be powerless to stop it. She sat against the head of the bed, her feet curled under her, her eyes fixed on the door. Somehow she must convince herself that she and Sammy would pull through this; if she didn’t, she would go to pieces. But what was going to happen to Christian? What in God’s name had he done to the people holding Sammy to make them threaten her the way they had?

  At last the heavy tread of footsteps sounded in the corridor outside. Terror sank into her bones. She couldn’t move; she couldn’t speak; she couldn’t even breathe. When the knock came, her eyes remained rooted to the door, watching the twist of the handle. It opened slowly and two men stepped inside.

  The moment she saw them Penny almost collapsed with relief. One was wearing the military-style uniform of the Manila police. The other was showing her his badge.

  ‘Miss Moon?’ the uniformed man enquired.

  Penny nodded.

  The uniformed officer turned to his superior, a stumpy man with a bulging forehead and receding chin, who, as his eyes travelled from her to something he was holding in his hand, introduced himself in perfect English as Chief Superintendent Jalmasco of the Philippine National Police, Narcotics Command.

  Penny’s eyes darted between them. Dread was suddenly stalking her again. She knew from Christian how easy it was to obtain false papers, so were these men really who they were claiming to be?

  ‘We have reason to believe that you know the whereabouts of a man wanted by the United States Drug Enforcement Administration,’ the superintendent continued.

  Penny merely looked at him. Her heart was thudding so hard it was an effort to breathe. The uniformed man came towards her. Penny pressed herself back against the bed, but he moved past her and began picking things up, turning them over in his hand, then discarding them.

  ‘Are you aware,’ Jalmasco said, ‘that it is a crime to protect a wanted man?’

  Penny’s eyes were wide. Again she turned to the uniformed man as he started pulling open drawers and checking inside. She took a breath and felt herself burn with guilt as the words came falteringly from her lips. ‘He’s – he’s at the pier in Binangonan,’ she said, flooding with shame at how easily she had caved in, but willing herself to think of Sammy.

  The superintendent looked at her with raised eyebrows, then turned to watch the other man as he emptied the contents of her suitcase on to the bed.

  ‘Are you holding my sister?’ Penny said.

  The superintendent seemed slightly taken aback by the question, but ignored it.

  ‘Are you holding my sister?’ she repeated.

  ‘If I were you, Miss Moon,’ he said, still watching his subordinate, ‘I would be more concerned about myself right now. Is this yours?’

  Penny turned and her eyes dilated in confusion and terror as the other man held up a transparent bag filled with a white substance.

  ‘I repeat,’ the superintendent said, turning back to her. ‘Is this yours?’

  Penny shook her head. ‘No,’ she cried. ‘I’ve never seen it before.’

  The superintendent nodded. The uniformed man laid the bag down on the bed and took a small white box covered in blue print from his pocket.

  Penny watched in horrified disbelief as he opened the box and lifted out a plastic phial of clear liquid in which a single capsule bobbed at random. Then he pulled open the bag on the bed and tipped a small amount of the white substance into the phial.

  Penny was numbed by terror. It was a nightmare. It couldn’t be happening. But she knew, even before he pinched the capsule to break it, what colour the liquid would turn the instant the chemicals in the capsule contacted the substance.

  As the colour seeped into the bag the superintendent looked back at her with a satisfied smile. ‘Heroin,’ he pronounced as Penny stared helplessly at the violet-blue liquid.

  The
n suddenly it was as if the whole world had gone crazy. More men burst in to the room. They moved so swiftly Penny had no chance to stop them. Someone was reading her her rights as her hands were wrenched behind her back, handcuffs were snapped on to her wrists and she was pushed towards the door. The room was wrecked as curtains were torn down, furniture was overturned, the beds were stripped and drawers were hauled out. The superintendent yanked open the door and shoved her through. Outside there were more police, crouching in the shadows along the corridor, inching forward with guns aimed straight at her head.

  Her legs were so weak she could barely walk. Two men gripped her arms and dragged her downstairs to a waiting car. As they thrust her inside, Penny pleaded desperately with them to listen. No one would and as the car accelerated off into the night her head fell back against the seat as, with a sense of utter hopelessness and terror, she realized that they hadn’t actually asked her where Christian was, nor had they seemed to know anything about Sammy. So who, in God’s name, were they and where were they taking her?

  Chapter 21

  DURING THE MOMENTS after Pierre told David that Penny had been arrested there was nothing but an excruciating silence.

  ‘David? David, are you still there?’ he said at last.

  ‘Yeah, I’m here. What the hell happened?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t have all the details.’

  ‘Then give me what you have.’

  ‘She was picked up by Narcotics Command at the hotel in Antipolo just over an hour ago. They found a kilo of heroin.’

  ‘Jesus Holy Christ,’ David muttered. ‘I take it you know what that means?’

  ‘Yes,’ Pierre answered sombrely.

  ‘Then let’s hope to God she doesn’t. Where is she now?’

  ‘As far as I know, they’ve taken her to the local jail.’

  David winced. ‘Where’s Mureau?’

  ‘No idea. He’s disappeared.’

  David’s face tightened. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘At the Shangri-La in Manila.’

  ‘Then meet me off the plane when I get there. I’ll call you from—’

  ‘David, are you crazy?’

  David’s temper suddenly snapped. ‘Don’t you get it, Pierre?’ he yelled. ‘It’s all over for me. I’ve got nothing left to loose. Not even the boys . . .’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Don’t waste time,’ David cut in. ‘Just get out there and find her a lawyer before someone else does it for her.’

  As a milky dawn light crept into the early-morning shadows of the cell Penny watched the old woman who lay crooked in an arthritic jumble on a wooden pallet beneath the wide, barred window. Her jaw was slack, saliva trickled from the corner of her mouth and her wrinkled, leathery face twitched in dream or pain. Outside in the dingy yard a set of pipes gurgled and clanged, then spewed a mass of thick grey liquid into the gutter. As it oozed a path towards the drains a scrawny, tailless cat leapt from the wall and darted across the yard, squealing as it knocked against a pile of tin cans. The noise caused the young girl who was asleep on the pallet beside Penny to stir and turn over. Penny, who was sitting hugging her knees to her chest on the end of the pallet, wondered how she could sleep on the bare, worm-eaten boards. As the girl’s thumb found its way into her mouth she reached above her head with her other hand and twisted her fingers around the hem of Penny’s sweater. She could be no more than fourteen years old. Another girl, probably around twenty, was curled up on the floor on a pile of rags beside the old woman’s pallet, her thick black hair matted around her face.

  It was a cell meant for eight women, though mercifully, considering it had only two beds, contained only four right now, including Penny. It was set in a corner of a high-walled yard littered with rusting oil drums and the corroded frames of bicycles and car parts. When she had been brought there during the night Penny had reeled in horror at the sight of what looked like an animal pen and tried desperately to struggle free. As she wept and pleaded with them to listen, her handcuffs were removed while someone unlocked the barred gate, and then she was pushed inside. The stench had hit her stomach like a physical blow and, seeing her about to throw up, the old woman had thrust a tin bowl at her.

  It still sat there, at the foot of the pallet, adding its own nauseating smell to the stinking sewage seeping from the lavatory cubicle in the corner. This place wasn’t fit for animals, never mind humans, and Penny knew that if she were made to suffer it for any length of time she’d never pull through. Her eyes closed as despair enveloped her heart and lodged in her throat. It was all she could do to overcome the urge to throw herself against the barred gate and scream hysterically for release.

  Her throat was parched, but she was afraid to touch the water in the urn. She itched all over, her bladder was filled to bursting. Earlier she’d ventured into the lavatory, but the stinking foulness that had assaulted her had sent her reeling back into the cell. She’d tried again, with the neck of her sweater pulled up over her nose, but when she’d seen the hole in the ground and felt her feet slithering in faeces she’d only just managed to make it to the tin bowl in time.

  Now, sensing someone watching her, she turned to look at the young girl beside her. She was staring up at her, her wide brown eyes steeped in awe that a Western woman should be sharing their cell. All three women had stared at her that way when she’d arrived, their soft, cowlike eyes unblinking and disbelieving, and uttered not a word.

  Penny’s eyes moved to the patch of pale sky she could see through the bars. It was no good trying to tell herself that this was a nightmare, that she’d wake up any minute and find herself back in France, for the horrific reality of rats combined with the unrelenting dread of what was going to happen to her had kept her awake all night. She still didn’t know how the heroin had come to be in her bag, but could only presume that Benny Lao had planted it there while she was out with Christian, then tipped off the police. Whether or not they had arrested Christian too she had no idea, for she’d seen no one since they’d thrown her in here and doubted they would tell her even if they had. As for Sammy, she couldn’t bear to think what might have happened to her and took shallow comfort from the hope that her captors, whoever they were, had heard of her arrest and had realized that she was now powerless to do as they’d asked.

  More hours ticked by, monotonously and agonizingly slowly, as the distant clatter of street life carried into the yard. Now the other women in the cell were staring at her too. Never in her life had she been unable to get up and walk out of a room at any moment of her choosing; she’d never known what it was to be trapped like this. The dank, mouldy walls were closing in on her and the benign scrutiny of her cellmates was working her panic to such a pitch that her whole body shook with the effort of trying to suppress the hysteria. Her bladder was screaming the need for release and in the end, as the pipes outside splashed another viscous emission into the gutter, she lost control. As the urine seeped through her panties and leggings and trickled through the wooden slats on to the floor, tears of humiliation and hopelessness ran down her cheeks. She slumped over her knees, sobbing with shame and bitter despair. How long were they going to keep her here? Please God, they had to let her go soon or she would lose her mind. As it was, the terror and confusion and crazed speculation on what kind of sentence awaited her, coupled with what had really happened to put her there was pushing her closer and closer to the edge.

  It took a long time for her bladder to empty. By the time it did, the old woman was sitting beside her holding out a rag for her to wipe away her tears. Penny took it, then the old woman lifted the water jug and emptied it on to the floor, sluicing the urine towards the gutter that ran beneath the iron bars of the door. Penny tried to thank her, but the act of kindness was making her cry all the harder. She could barely catch her breath as sobs of utter desolation and fear tore through her body.

  ‘You American?’ the old woman said.

  Penny tensed, unsure she had heard right; then, lifting
her head to look at the woman, she saw the hesitant light of friendliness in her eyes.

  ‘No,’ Penny sniffed, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. ‘No, English. You speak English?’

  ‘Leetle.’ There was a moment or two’s awkwardness, then the woman said, ‘Why you here?’

  Penny bit her lips as fresh tears threatened. ‘I don’t know,’ she said brokenly. ‘It’s a mistake. They found heroin in my bag.’

  The old woman nodded. Then, turning to the youngest of the two girls, she said, ‘She here for drug.’

  Penny looked at the girl, realizing from the blankness of her expression that she had no idea what was being said. ‘How long has she been here?’ she asked, dread of the answer squeezing her heart.

  ‘She here five month,’ the old woman answered.

  Penny’s head fell back against the wall as the sheer horror of it penetrated her. ‘Five months?’ she repeated. ‘Hasn’t she been tried?’ Seeing the woman didn’t understand the question, she said, ‘Court? Has she been for trial at court?’

  ‘She still wait.’

  Oh dear God, Penny was moaning inside. Five months in this hell-hole just waiting for trial. ‘And you?’ she said. ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘I here for robbery. They let me go home, but I no have money for bail.’

  Penny looked at her with a remote yet profound sympathy. She was probably so poor that she had been forced to commit the robbery that had put her here and now she had no way of raising the money to get out. ‘Do you ever have any visitors?’ she asked.

  ‘My children, they come last week. But they not come often. They have no money for buses.’

  Penny wished she could think of something to say, but couldn’t. So instead she asked why the oldest of the two girls was there.