Six Minutes To Freedom

by John Gilstrap

  His family would get away. Tomás, Pablo, Antonio, Coronado, and all the others would get away. They had to. And even if they hadn’t, for the time being, Kurt had to believe that they had. He had to believe at every binary option that the preferable outcome had prevailed until proven otherwise.

  Down the hall, from another room in the substation, he could hear a harsh exchange of words, and he could hear the sound of crying. The walls were too thick, or the distances long enough that he couldn’t make out the words, but he forced himself to believe that the female voice was neither his daughter nor his mother. Nor was it any of his friends’ wives. For all he knew, it was just a couple of actors playingout a scene that was designed specifically to make him think the thoughts he was thinking.

  It’s not them, he told himself forcefully, and then he struggled desperatelyto find a way to justify the conclusion. It certainly didn’t sound like any voice he’d heard, but what does one really sound like when one is being tortured?

  Then he got it: If it were his family or friends, the torture would be meted out in his presence, so he could watch and beg for it to stop. When the loved ones were on the brink of disfigurement or worse, the torturers would then turn to Kurt, who would willingly tell them everythingthey wanted to know, selling out everyone he knew. But since he couldn’t see them, the voices were owned by people he didn’t know.

  That such fragile logic gave him comfort made him realize that captivityhad already begun to transform him into a different man.

  Kimberly hated being ignored. She hated being locked into a room, and she hated being segregated from all the others with whom she obviouslyhad something in common, even if she didn’t yet know what that was.

  “What’s happening?” Erik asked for the three thousandth time. “Where’s Dad? Where are Nana and Papi? What’s going to happen to us? Why can’t we be with the others?”

  The questions went on and on and on, and Kimberly was running out of ways to say, “I don’t know” without losing her temper. She didn’t know anything. So far as she could tell, no one knew anything. People just talked quickly, and none of them plainly enough that she could hear what they were saying through the walls of the tiny office where they’d been stashed.

  The fear that blossomed in her belly had a physical weight, a gnawing,awful sense that life had irreversibly taken a wrong turn. She found herself worrying about everything. Not just her dad and mom, but Nana, Papi, Uncle David, Aunt Carol, Joey, and all those people huddled in the front room. She worried about what tomorrow could possibly bring when she clearly could not return to the house, and she just as clearly had no other place to go.

  As the fear took root, and as the sense of loneliness and separation grew deeper, she couldn’t help but wonder what she had done to be punished this way. She could tell in the attitudes of her grandparents, and in the looks in the eyes of those Panamanians out front that she had somehow been cast as the bad guy in a drama where she didn’t beginto understand the action, let alone the plot. They should be feeling sorry for her, for heaven’s sake. They shouldn’t be treating her as if she’d done something wrong. She was just a kid! Her father had been arrested, and now she and her little brother were all alone. Where was the sympathy? Where were the hugs? None of this made sense and none of it was fair.

  She looked over to her little brother as he asked his latest set of questions, and she held out her arm for him to snuggle against her. The fact that he didn’t even hesitate spoke volumes about just how much the world had changed in the last few hours. At twelve, Erik’s job—and he did it well—was to bug his big sister. While he loved being with Kimberly, and his need for her attention was insatiable, he hadn’t yet discovered an avenue of expression that didn’t involve perpetual annoyance.Certainly, it was not like him to show affection or to take a hug, but for right now that seemed to be what was most important to him.

  It frightened Kimberly to think that for the foreseeable future, with only three years separating them, she had assumed the role of being the mother, while Erik seemed to grow even younger as he shrank away from the fear.

  When she thought about it, actually, it kind of pissed her off. Now, besides all the other burdens of the evening, she had to swallow her own fear so she could put on a face of calm detachment that would keep Erik’s own panic from entering the stratosphere.

  Oh, God, Daddy, what did you do?

  Kimberly watched as the clock on the wall buzzed its way past six o’clock in the morning. She tried to imagine where the time had gone, even as she wondered how it could possibly be less than a week since the time when she was studying for something as mundane as a biologyexam.

  Another stab of fear jolted through her belly. She was going to get a zero on the exam!

  Before she had a chance to wrap her mind around that, the door to their office-prison opened, revealing a handsome American with the physical demeanor of a soldier, but the haircut and the clothes of a collegekid.

  “Time to go,” he announced.

  Kimberly and Erik stood together. “Go where?” Kimberly asked.

  “Just follow me, please.” He wasn’t the same soldier who had led them to the room in the first place, but clearly he’d been trained by the same boss. Kimberly marveled at how efficiently and effectively these people could make an order sound like a request.

  She wanted to resist. She wanted to dig in her heels and demand that somebody start coughing up answers before she did anything. Then again, she wanted to be at home in her own bed, but that wasn’t going to happen, either.

  Keeping a hand on Erik’s shoulder, she followed the soldier out of the office, through the now-empty main room, and finally to another office where Nana and Papi sat with Carol, David, and Joey in the company of several serious-looking strangers.

  “... can’t stay here,” a major said to the rest of the family as the door opened. “It’s going on oh-six-thirty. In an hour, this place is goingto be swarming with employees, Americans and Panamanians alike, and you just flat-out can’t be here.”

  Kimberly didn’t like the gravity in the major’s voice, and from the look in Papi’s face, he didn’t much like it, either. But somehow, the arrivalof the kids in the room seemed to decide whatever issue was beingdebated. All eyes turned to greet them, and again, they all showed some mixture of empathy and discomfort.

  The major stood and offered a forced, institutional smile. “You must be Kimberly and Erik,” he said, offering his hand. “I’m Major Mansfield.We’ve actually met, although you might not remember. Your grandmother and I have worked together. It’s very nice to see you again.”

  “Where’s my father?” Erik asked. “What’s happening to us?”

  “Your father will be fine,” the major said dismissively. “Right now, we need to get you to a safe place.”

  “Are we in danger?” Kimberly asked.

  Major Mansfield dodged the question. “You’ll be perfectly safe, so long as you do what I tell you, okay? I know you have a lot of questions,and if I had answers, I swear to God I’d share them with you. But that’s not where we are. What we need is to get you out of here and nestled into someplace comfortable—someplace where you can get some food and rest—and then we’ll start on the next big steps. Is that okay with you?”

  Erik and Kimberly exchanged glances. Neither of them had a clue what the major was talking about, but from the way the question was structured, it was obvious that there was a right and a wrong answer. They nodded in unison.

  “Good,” Mansfield said. He looked to the others. “We’ll let the Muse children go first, okay?” Again, the “okay” at the end of the sentencewas clearly a bit of verbal decoration. If someone had said “hell no,” it wouldn’t have mattered.

  With the concession of the extended family assumed, Mansfield went on, “I want you to follow Ski here”—he nodded to the soldier with the long hair—“out to the car that’s waiting outside. I want you to move quickly without running, and I want you to slouch down
low in the seats once you’re there, and stay down low until your driver says it’s okay to sit up again. When you get to the place where you’re going,we’re going to do exactly the opposite. We’re going to open your doors for you—don’t open them yourselves, okay?—and when Ski tells you it’s okay, then I want you to walk quickly without running to the door that will be open for you.” When he finished, Mansfield had an expectant look on his face, like a fellow who had just told a couple of kids about the plan to get ice cream after school. “Is that okay with you?”

  “Where are you taking us?” Kimberly asked.

  “You’ll be with your grandparents,” Mansfield said. Apparently, he hadn’t heard the question.

  “No, what I asked was—”

  “Kimberly.” Papi said her name with a finality that told her it was time to stop talking.

  Just like that, the decision was made. Whatever was happening was either so awful or so secret that the people who worked in the Provost Marshal’s office had to be kept in the dark. Kimberly still didn’t know what that meant exactly, but she knew that none of it was good.

  She started to ask if Carol and David and the rest of the family were coming along as well, but opted not to. She didn’t recognize the Papi that she was seeing now. She was confused. Ski was standing at the door. It was time to start the rest of her life.

  The drive to the safe house was a quick one, just five, maybe seven minutes. That’s what they called it, too—a safe house—as if they were in the midst of some witness protection program or something. From where she sat, hunched down in the back of the car—they only drove Toyotas, it seemed—she couldn’t tell exactly where they’d ended up, but just from the traffic patterns and the brevity of the trip, she figured it had to still be on post at Clayton somewhere.

  “Okay,” Ski said, slinging his arm over the back of the seat so he could look at them. “Remember what Major Mansfield told you. Walk quickly, but no running. Keep your eyes forward and just keep walkingtoward the back door, the one that’s open. Got it?”

  Kimberly and Erik nodded in unison. The keeping her head down part made her nervous. Were people going to be shooting at them or something?

  “Wait for me to come around and open the door.”

  The kids did exactly as they were told, their hands gripped tightly together, Kimberly lugging Erik’s overnight bag. They led the way up a low hill on which sat a single family house that probably had once belonged to a major or lieutenant colonel. It was a pretty good size from the outside, two stories, but nothing like the palaces on the other side of the post where the bird colonels lived. Ski brought up the rear, keeping them moving without having to push. Up ahead, at the back door, stood another scruffy-haired soldier. He stood sort of sideways in the door, his hand hanging awkwardly by his side in a way that suggestedto Kimberly that he might have been concealing a pistol behind his thigh. All in all, the trip from the car to the door took less than fifteenseconds. Kimberly barely had time to notice that a nice day was nearly fully bloomed.

  The inside of the house smelled like the former occupants, whoever they were. Old cooking smells and the faint aroma of dirty socks hung in the air like a neglected ghost. They entered through the kitchen, which appeared to be equipped with the original appliances. They’d probablybeen black and white at one time, but now they seemed cepia-toned in the dim light of the rising sun. Chipped porcelain and cracked counter tops told the story of too many rambunctious children over the years. The metal cabinets mounted to the walls had been painted so many times that they looked padded, squishy. The cabinet doors mostly gaped open, in Kimberly’s mind speaking of one last sweep to make sure that they’d been thoroughly cleaned out before the family moved away.

  “The house is empty,” Kimberly said. She’d meant it as a question, actually, but thought it just as well to have come out as a statement. The answer was obvious enough.

  Neither of the soldiers answered her.

  “Are Nana and Papi coming, too?” Erik asked.

  Ski just looked at him with a mix of sadness and curiosity. “Stay away from the windows,” he said.

  The tone sounded distinctly angry, and Erik shot a look to his sisterto see if he’d said something wrong. Kimberly forced a smile and put her hand on his shoulder. She wanted to tell him that everything was fine, but absolutely nothing about any of this was even close to fine.

  “Come on into the living room,” the other soldier said, gesturing through the tiny arched doorway. Again, they did as they were told.

  Beyond the kitchen, they walked through a miniscule dining room that was nowhere near big enough for the table and chairs that their mother owned. The wooden floors showed terrible wear, and Kimberly wondered why people didn’t take at least good enough care of their houses to put a rug under the dining room chairs.

  Leaving the kitchen, the first thing Kimberly noticed was the darknessof the place. A single overhead light in the foyer carried the burdenof illuminating the entire downstairs, and its job was made a thousand times more difficult by the fact that someone had nailed olive-drab bed sheets over each of the windows.

  “Stay away from the windows,” the second soldier said, obviously unaware that they’d already been given their strict instructions.

  “It’s dark in here,” Erik said.

  “They don’t want people seeing in,” Kimberly explained. It was a guess, actually, but apparently a good one, judging from the expression on Ski’s face.

  “Where are all the other people?” Erik said.

  Never all that expressive to begin with, when presented with a directquestion, their countenances grew even blanker. Whether by choice or direction, these guys were obviously not going to be sharing any details.

  They cleared the dining room in three strides and found themselves in the foyer, facing a living room with a worn sofa on one wall and bare blue-striped mattresses on the floor.

  “Have a seat,” Ski said.

  He had to be kidding. The mattresses were filthy. God only knew who had slept there last, and Kimberly didn’t want to know what they’d done on them while they’d lain there.

  “I guess I know where you got the sheets for the windows,” Kimberlyquipped.

  Neither soldier smiled, but as the nameless one crossed his arms over his chest, she saw for the first time the holstered pistol on his hip.

  Erik pointed toward a shadow in the background behind Mr. Nameless.“Are those stairs? Where do they go?”

  “Have a seat,” Ski said again. “Please.” He could make a simple requestsound as menacing as a threat to shoot.

  “How long are we going to be here?” Kimberly asked. Somewhere deep in her gut, a gush of anger threatened to douse the heat of her fear. They’d done nothing wrong here. Didn’t they have some rights? Could they be treated like this legally? Like criminals of some sort? Wasn’t there some recourse? She didn’t ask any of these things, of course, but she was able to summon up one of those glares that made it very clear to everyone that she was not pleased.

  Before either soldier had a chance to answer—or ignore—her, they were all distracted by commotion in the kitchen. The door burst open, and a voice that could only belong to Aunt Carol protested, “... demandto know what you are planning for us. I will not be treated this way!”

  Hearing her thoughts verbalized, Kimberly was grateful that she’d limited herself to the glare. As one, Ski and Mr. Silent moved back toward the dining room to receive their latest guests.

  As Carol passed through the archway into the dining room, her eyes locked right onto Kimberly and she stopped speaking.

  Erik moved closer to his sister and grabbed her hand.

  Kimberly felt a new breed of angst, as if she and Erik were somehowbeing held responsible for all that was happening. Suddenly, she felt like an animal in the zoo, watching as people stared at her from the other side of a cage. Somehow, this had become “us” versus “them” and Kimberly and Erik were trapped on the wrong side of the conflict
.

  “Have a seat,” Ski said to the newcomers, motioning toward the mattresses.

  No one moved. They just stared in horror at the terrible furnishings.

  Ski said, “It’s the best we could pull together on short notice.” He then went on to renew his instructions to stay away from the windows.

  “I don’t understand,” Erik said. “Who’s going to see us? Who’s tryingto hurt us?”

  No one even tried to answer.

  Erik caught the subtext, and his face was like a giant O. “But you’ll protect us, right?” he asked, pointing to Ski’s sidearm. “That’s what the guns are for, right?”

  Ski shifted uncomfortably. “If you stay away from the windows, you won’t have to worry,” he said.

  They’d barely made their way to the living room when the kitchen door opened and shut again, and the two soldiers returned to the diningroom. An instant later, there were Nana and Papi.

  Carol practically ran across the room to greet them. “Oh, thank God,” she said. “You did decide to come.”

  Charlie set his jaw, causing his mustache to twitch. “I didn’t decide anything,” he said. “But it was pretty clear we couldn’t stay where we were.”

  Kimberly and Erik hadn’t moved from their spot in the living room. As the room filled with family, she felt curiously more and more detachedfrom all of them. Even when the rest of the family settled in on their mattresses, the others remained segregated on the other side of the room, talking in clear tones about how irresponsible her father was and how many lives he had ruined. They didn’t care that Kimberly and Erik could hear every word. Even when the conversation turned mildly hopeful—“How long could they possibly keep him in custody?”—the words still hurt.

  Kimberly couldn’t wrap her mind around it. Her extended family had never been one of hugs and kisses, but beneath the reserve, there had always resided a layer of love that was supposed to blossom at times like these. There were supposed to be words of encouragement, soothing tones predicting nothing but positive outcomes. There should at least have been a smile.