Six Minutes To Freedom

by John Gilstrap

  “I let her go, sir.”

  Kurt suppressed a smile. Quintero reminded him of a schoolboy in trouble.

  “On whose authority?”

  “My own,” Quintero said. “She’s only a little girl, Major. I didn’t think that she would be important to us.”

  Moreno’s jaw tightened. “You didn’t think,” he said, tasting the words. “You didn’t think? You are not paid to think, Captain. You are paid to follow orders. Get her back. Right now.”

  Suddenly, Quintero looked ill, as if he would rather be ill than to say what was coming next: “I can’t. I don’t know where she is. Sir.”

  “Idiot!” Moreno boomed. “Suppose we need her for—” He stopped himself, casting a sideward glance to Kurt, and didn’t bother to finish the question.

  “You are right, Major,” Quintero said. “I wasn’t thinking. I’m terriblysorry.”

  Moreno turned to Kurt. “Where is she?”

  Kurt scowled at the question. “How would I know? Not here.”

  “Do not anger me, Mr. Muse,” Moreno growled. “You and I have many hours ahead of us. You and I together. This is not a good time to anger me.”

  “She was scared,” Kurt said. “She could be anywhere. Last time I saw her, she was running down the street. It’s not as if we had a long time to discuss her plans.”

  He was being obtuse, and Moreno knew it. The major was not amused. “Where do you think she might have gone, then?”

  Kurt pretended to think it over for a moment before offering an innocent shrug. “I don’t mean to anger you, Major. As you say, that hardly works to my benefit. But I honestly don’t know. If I think of something, I’ll—”

  “Excuse me, Major,” someone said from the hallway. Kurt turned to see a soldier with his rifle slung.

  “Not now,” Moreno barked.

  “But I think it might be important, sir.” The soldier was a kid, barely older than Kimberly, it appeared, but he carried himself with a military bearing that was unusual for members of the PDF. He was hard to ignore.

  “What is it, then?” Moreno barked.

  “I’m sorry to be listening, but I believe Mr. Muse’s daughter was just picked up by her grandfather.”

  Oh, shit, Kurt thought.

  Moreno’s complexion was heading north toward purple. “How long ago?”

  “She had been waiting at a friend’s house, apparently. Down the street. The house with the party.”

  “How long!”

  The soldier jumped at the eruption, nervously checked his watch. “Ten, maybe fifteen minutes ago.”

  Moreno whirled on Kurt. “You have no idea, eh? You have no idea where your daughter might have gone, yet your parents live here in Panama City?”

  Kurt eased a step backward, sure in his heart that the major was goingto strike him. On any other day, one on one, that wouldn’t have been a problem; Kurt could have kicked his ass into next week. With this much reinforcement, however, to fight back would mean suicide.

  “She’s my daughter, Major. What would you do?”

  Moreno trembled with rage. Clearly, he wanted to lash out, but for whatever reason, he did not. “Captain Quintero, find out where Mr. Muse’s parents live and we will pay them a visit.” He turned to leave, but stopped at the door to level a finger at his prisoner. “Bring him along.”

  Annie felt the panic rising in her gut. It was like a balloon deep inside her belly, and with each passing moment, it grew larger and larger. She’d lost track of the number of phone calls she’d made and received in the past hour. Right now, she had Nana on the line, and she was having trouble getting her to acknowledge the seriousness of their situation.

  “You need to get the children to the back gate of Fort Clayton,” Annie said for the umpteenth time. “They’re in grave danger. So are you and Papi. You need to go with them.”

  “I’m not going anywhere!” Nana proclaimed yet again. “Not until you tell me what this is all about. Rita and Alex Prieto called and they’re scared to death.”

  “They’re on the way with Erik, right?”

  “Well, yes, but they don’t know what to think. I don’t know what to tell them. And now you say that we all have to leave the country without telling me why?”

  “I don’t have time to tell you right now, Nana. I’m not holding out on you, I just don’t have the time. Kurt was working against Noriega, and now he’s under arrest. There are other people involved, too. It’s big, Nana. If you stay, they’ll use you and Papi and the children as a means to get to Kurt. They’ll hurt you.”

  “I don’t believe that. Panamanians aren’t like that.”

  Good God almighty, how long could this go on? “The children, then, Nana. Get the children to Clayton.”

  “Where are we going to take them?”

  “To the back gate.”

  “There are going to be MPs,” Nana said. “What do I tell them?”

  Good point. Very good point. “Can you call Major Mansfield?” Annie asked. Nana had worked as the secretary to the Provost Marshalof the U.S. Southern Command. Major Alan Mansfield was the Provost Marshal Pacific, and as such, he and Peggy had cumulatively spent hours talking to each other about one issue or another. These days, Mansfield was in charge of the military police units on the Pacificside of Panama. “Tell him that there are upward of twenty people coming to the back gate in the next hour or so. Almost all of them are going to be Panamanian citizens, and they’ll all be seeking asylum. It’s important that they be taken in immediately.”

  “Twenty!” Nana gasped. “Good lord.”

  “More than twenty,” Annie corrected. She was guessing here. She knew about the basic six coconspirators, but she didn’t know which were married, and she certainly had no idea how many children they might have. They would all need asylum.

  “I don’t know that he has the authority to grant asylum,” Nana said. “Charlie will be back with David and Kimberly soon. Maybe you should talk—”

  “Nana, no! We don’t have time!” How could she make her understand?“I can’t emphasize that enough. You are all in danger.”

  “I don’t even know if Major Mansfield is home,” Nana said.

  Annie dismissed it as irrelevant. He was or he wasn’t. She could do nothing about that either way. “Once you’re on the post, you need to find a Mr. Chiang. Everyone will know who he is. You find him, and he’ll know what to do.”

  The comment seemed to take the wind out of Nana. She fell silent.

  “Nana?”

  “You know Mr. Chiang?” Nana gasped. “This is about Mr. Chiang?”

  Annie heard the realization in Nana’s voice. Finally, she understood.Mr. Chiang was the CIA chief of station in Panama City, with quarters on the grounds of Fort Clayton. He had some official diplomaticcover, but such things never fooled people on the inside.

  “Now you understand the seriousness of this,” Annie said.

  “But Kurt said—”

  “Nana, please.”

  “Okay,” Nana said. The truth had finally dawned on her. “Okay, I’ll get right on it. I’ll call Major Mansfield right away. I don’t think Charlie is going to want to leave, though.”

  “Let’s just worry about the kids for now.”

  There was no effort made by either end of the conversation to close with a good-bye. There was so much to be done, and Annie knew that the clock was quickly ticking down to zero. The recognition in Nana’s voice when she mentioned Chiang’s name gave Annie pause. She herselfhad never heard of the man until a half hour ago, when she receiveda phone call from Suzanne Alexander, a long-time friend whom Annie knew for a fact worked for the Agency.

  Suzanne had called out of the blue, unsolicited—prompted, Annie was sure, by a plea from Richard Dotson, who was one of the first peopleAnnie called after she got the news. The Alexanders, Dotsons, and Muses had long been good friends and had even vacationed together in the past. About two years ago, though, Suzanne transferred back to Langley, followed shortly by Rich
ard, who was called back for a stint at Foggy Bottom.

  However it worked, Suzanne had been very specific: they were to find Mr. Chiang at Fort Clayton. He was the one and only person who could make this work out happily.

  With her phone call to Nana complete, Annie placed the phone on its receiver and realized that for the time being she had nothing left to do but wait.

  “Is there anything I can do?” asked a voice from the doorway.

  Annie hadn’t realized that Larry was listening. Come to think of it, she’d forgotten that he was in the house at all. “No,” she said, rubbing her temples. “All that’s left now is the wait.”

  7

  Kurt squirmed in the back of the van, doing his best to overhearwhat lay ahead for his family when the caravan arrived. His parentshad all the money, the business belonged to them. There was the property on Taboga. All of it was in jeopardy now, and it was all becauseof him. Noriega had long established himself as a tyrant who assumedthat everyone’s property was his for the taking. God only knew what he would take from a man whose son worked ceaselessly and effectivelyto make the general look like a fool.

  Please get away, Kurt prayed. It had been nearly six hours since his arrest, plenty of time for word to spread. The uncertainty of it all was killing him.

  If Kimberly got in touch with Annie, then everything would turn out fine. Annie could make amazing things happen in no time at all. But if, for some reason, she had not gotten the message ... He refused to think about it. In three minutes, they’d be at the house. There was no stalling anymore.

  The clock on the dash of the BMW read 1:30 when Papi finally pulled to a stop in front of the La Cresta apartment. Carol had already arrivedfrom her and David’s place across the street, and Kimberly found the atmosphere electric and frightening.

  Nana met them before they were halfway to the door. “When Erik gets here, we have to leave,” she said. “The children are in danger. I just spoke with Annie on the phone. She says that we should leave, too. You and I.”

  Papi didn’t want to hear it. “That’s ridiculous. This is Kurt’s game, not ours.”

  “Mr. Chiang is involved,” Nana elaborated. “That means the CIA is involved.”

  This only seemed to make Papi angrier. “Dammit,” he growled. “He swore to me. He swore to me that he was not involved with the Agency. I’m not going anywhere.” Papi had roots here that were thirty years old. He had a business to run, a life to lead. He had no desire to get sucked into his son’s suicidal politics.

  “We have to,” Nana said. “When Erik gets here, we have to leave. If the PDF gets a hold of them, Annie is convinced—” she cut herself off, as if suddenly aware that Kimberly was listening.

  “What about our lives?” Papi demanded.

  “Tomorrow,” Nana said. “We’ll get to that tomorrow. For right now, we have to get the children to Mr. Chiang’s house on Clayton. He’s waiting.”

  It was an unspeakable betrayal of the family. Papi couldn’t get beyondthe anger. How dare Kurt take such ridiculous chances with his life—with all their lives? His children’s lives, for God’s sake. With emotionsboiling this hot, all he could think about was the day of reckoning.Sooner or later, he’d have a chance to speak to Kurt face to face. When that happened—

  The thought was cut short by the roar of an approaching engine and the growing glare of headlights.

  For a moment, Kimberly thought it was over, that the PDF trucks were arriving, but no sooner had the thought formed than she recognizedthe Prietos’ black Toyota Pathfinder. In the backseat, in the dark, she could just barely discern the outline of her little brother. He looked as if he might be asleep, but when the door finally opened, she saw that he was more than awake. Barely dressed, with his auburn hair on sideways,he seemed to be stranded in a netherworld between anger and fear.

  As the Prietos discharged their passenger and his luggage, there was more talk about what her dad had been doing. Why on earth would the DENI be arresting Kurt? He was an American citizen. He had ties to the Defense Department. It was all the same stuff over and over again. This time, though, by eavesdropping, Kimberly learned the additionaldetail that her mother was very distraught over this.

  For the first time, Kimberly had a very real sense of the danger that she herself was in. Up till now, her fear had all been about her father. Now it was personal. Now it was about herself, Erik, and her angry grandparents.

  Nana cut the discussion short. She thanked the Prietos for their help, but then started herding the family toward the car. Erik was here now, there was no need to wait. If Annie’s suspicions were correct, the goons would be here momentarily, and then all options but surrender would evaporate in a heartbeat.

  Kimberly didn’t hesitate. She was ready to be moving. She was ready for the arguments to stop and for life to return to normal. As she sat with the car door open, she listened as an argument erupted between her brother and Papi.

  “No!” Papi barked. “Absolutely not. There’s no room for that thing in here.”

  Erik had recently taken up skate boarding, and it had become his number-one passion. “I’m not going without it,” the boy said. That kind of recalcitrance in the presence of Papi’s anger could only be explainedby exhaustion.

  “Get in the car,” Papi said. Standing nearby, Carol looked ready to throttle the boy.

  “Not without my board.”

  “Get. In. The. Car.”

  Finally, Erik got it. Sanity bloomed like a lifting veil. Realizing that he’d pushed everyone as hard and as far as they would go, he sullenly surrendered and climbed into the back of the BMW while Papi loaded the suitcase he’d packed for his sleepover into the trunk.

  One look at his sister frightened him. “What’s happening? Where are we going?” he asked.

  Kimberly shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “Where’s Dad?”

  She hesitated. How much should she share? As the big sister, how much responsibility did she have to keep her worries to herself? “He’ll be fine.”

  “Somebody said he was arrested.”

  Kimberly looked at him for a long moment and then turned to face front. “He’ll be fine,” she said again. Repeat it often enough and it would come true.

  Outside the car, there was more discussion that this was all a waste of time. Carol and David would wait at Nana and Papi’s house until everything blew over and they returned. It couldn’t take more than a few hours, after all.

  The whole car shook as Papi closed the door, his ultimate expressionof frustration and anger. “Where are we going?” he asked Nana.

  “To Clayton. The back gate.” She pulled the notes she’d taken from her conversation with Annie out of her purse and read them.

  “We’re to take the children to Mr. Chiang’s house. He’ll take care of things from there.”

  Papi pulled the transmission into gear and grumbled something that Kimberly could not hear, something she probably didn’t want to hear. Slowly, they pulled out of the driveway and headed down the hill for the other side of the world. She settled into the seat and closed her eyes, hoping that rest might settle the awful churning in her stomach.

  Two minutes into the trip, something happened to jolt her upright in her seat. Maybe it was a gear change or a subtle jerk of the steering wheel. Or, maybe it was an audible gasp from someone in the front seat. Heading down a long hill, Papi had to pull far over to the right to let the parade of PDF vehicles charge up the hill in the direction they’d just left. They drove fast and aggressively, clearly on an importantmission.

  Up in the front seat, Nana and Papi exchanged nervous glances.

  When Carol saw the headlights at the end of the street, her first thought was that Nana and Papi must have forgotten something. They hadn’t been gone two minutes. Then, when the vehicles kept coming, she realizedwho it was. The hunters had missed their prey by mere moments.They must have passed each other on the street, she thought.

  The vehicles took up
the entire street, some of them parking close to the house and others parking farther away. At this hour, crowd controlcouldn’t possibly be a problem, but they seemed to be taking no chances. Carol retreated to the doorway of her parents’ home and waited for the lead soldier to approach her. There were no uniforms, she noted, but there was no way to miss the way they swaggered when the moved.

  “I am Captain Cortizo,” the soldier said. “Please step aside.”

  “What do you want?” Carol asked.

  “Are you Mrs. Muse?”

  “I am her daughter. We live across the street.”

  “And where are your mother and father?”

  Cortizo could not have been more polite, yet his questions could not have been more piercing. “I don’t know,” she said. The transparencyof the lie was obvious, yet what else could she say?

  The captain’s eyes narrowed as he jerked his head for Carol to move aside. She complied as they filed into the house, then followed them inside.

  They worked with the zeal of a hungry hoard, spreading quickly throughout the apartment as they searched every corner for something of interest to them.

  “What exactly are you looking for?” Carol asked, but no one would answer her. She jumped when the phone rang. Carol picked it up beforethe second ring.

  “Mom?” said the voice on the other end. It was her daughter, Joanna—Joey—and her fear was palpable even through the phone line. “What’s happening?”

  “Nothing, honey. Stay home.”

  “It looks like the police.”

  Shocked that no one had yanked the phone from her hand, Carol tried to speak as cryptically as possible. “That’s right.”

  “I’m coming over.”

  “No, you’re not. Stay where you are.”

  A soldier had finally taken notice of what Carol was doing and started her way. Carol quickly hung up the phone and tried to look innocentas she smiled at the guard.

  “Who was that?” the soldier asked.

  “My daughter,” she answered, honestly enough. “We live across the street and she saw the commotion.”