To The Lions - 02 (34 page)

Though
hurtful pieces of her life would occasionally strike her like cosmic debris
hitting a hurtling spacecraft, this time, at this very moment, the thudding
realization of what she’d become crashed down on her with the weight of the
prison itself.

“I’m
their whore,” she rasped, her voice well under the sound of the hair dryer.

Unable
to hold herself up, she crumbled to the floor, curling up on the shaggy throw
rug, shaking in her sobs.

“I’ve
got to get out,” she whispered through the tears.
 
“I’ve got to get out.”

* * *

Sitting
there on the coverlet, eyes closed, his hands laced behind his head, Gage
prayed the lights would soon go out.
 
With no watch, no clock, and no windows, he could only guess at the
time.
 
He had plans, lots of them, but
had no idea what direction they might take.
 
Tonight he would be drawing on several arcane blocks of military
training, melding them with his own creativity, imagining contingencies, dreaming
up scenarios, and numbly hoping for an opportunity or two.

Finally,
there was a loud electrical click, like a breaker tripping.
 
Then darkness.
 

Gage
went to work.
 

He
moved into the bedroom, stretching as if he were preparing for bed.
 
After stripping off his shirt, he climbed
under the seemingly clean wool blanket and leaned over, switching off the lamp,
an item he was surprised to find in the apartment.
 
He was certain, before a person was allowed
to leave the apartment, that the guards would probably inventory the
apartment’s items—the power cords being first on the list.
 
Once in bed with the lamp switched off,
chancing the fact that he could no longer be seen, he emerged from the bed,
padding to a spot next to the main door where he touched the metal cover over
the outlet.
 
The only illumination in the
entire room was a strip of light coming under the door from the hallway. There,
licking his lips, he waited for his eyes to adjust, wondering if the sliver of
hallway light would be enough to work by.
 
While he waited, he made his way to the sofa, removing the phone.
 
Then he flipped the sofa over and went to
work on the springs.

At
least an hour later, when he’d finally torn three springs from the underside of
the sofa, Gage moved back to the front wall, trying to decide if he had enough
light to proceed.
 
The light from the gap
under the door—it was nearly an inch—was sufficient, allowing him to see the
wall plate and the two dark dots on each spanner-screw.
 
Using one of the springs, he slowly and
steadily picked at the top screw, trying to be quiet even though he’d found no
evidence of a resident microphone.
 
After
ten minutes he flirted with the idea of burrowing into the hardboard wall but,
following a few more tries, he managed to get the first screw moving.
 
Once he’d turned it one revolution, he was
able to remove the screw by hand and followed it by removing the next one in a
third of the time.
 

Screws
in his pocket, Gage opened the socket, feeling inside, well aware that, in the
event the socket was electric, he could get zapped by the European standard 220
volts.
 
There was a coiled wire inside,
too thin to be electrical.
 
He tugged the
wire out, finding a great deal of slack in the wall.
 
Holding the wire beside the light of the door
gap, Gage was happy to see the familiar old D-station wire like he’d trained on
years before.
 
Using the sharp point of
the spring, he ripped at the rubber coating at the wire’s end, finding the
universal colors of black, yellow, red, and green.

Phones
typically use 48 volts, twice that when ringing, but not a lot of
amperage.
 
Gage knew this as he stripped
the wires away from the coating, taking what seemed forever to strip the thin
wires with his smallest spring.
 
That
eventually done, Gage went back to the sofa, reaching into the filth behind the
cushions and spiriting away his stolen phone.
 
He’d found a semi-sharp edge on the back of
the refrigerator.
 
He gripped the phone’s
springy cord on both sides, sawing back and forth until the cord separated.
 
Then, repeating what he’d done with the wall
cord, but this time using his teeth on all four, Gage stripped the wires and,
in the scant light, set about matching the colors and twisting the wires
together.

With
no electrical tape, he had to bend the four wires out, so they wouldn’t touch
one another.
 
After making each of the
unions fast, Gage took a breath as he prepared to twist the red wire
together.
 
This was the hot wire and, as
deflating as the prospect was, Gage was afraid the phone wire might be dead and
this entire project completely futile.

He
touched the wires together.
 
There was no
spark.
 
No light from the phone.
 
Nothing.

“Damn
it,” he mouthed, twisting the two copper leads together and carefully lifting
the phone to his ear.
 
It was dead.

Gage
leaned against the outer wall, his head pressing backward as he closed his
eyes, a tiny piece of him reasoning that he might as well just get some sleep.

A
sound jolted him.

It
came from just outside the door.
 
Gage
opened his eyes and looked at the strip of light, seeing two dark patches in
the long strip.
 
He heard metal jingling.

Keys.

Shit!

He
looked at the phone wire, seeing that the green wire had actually come undone
when he’d lifted the phone.
 
Unable to
worry over that, he jerked the three other splicings apart, coiling the wire
and stuffing it in the jack housing.

The
key scraped at the door, sliding into the lock.

There
was no time to cover the housing.
 
Gage
grabbed his three springs, his phone, and the outlet cover.

The
lock turned, the sliding bolt sounding like trains uncoupling to Gage’s highly
attuned ears.

He
leapt from his spot, lurching through the space, diving into the bed and
scattering his items under the chintzy wool blanket, sprawling the way people
do once they’re well asleep.

His
closed eyes were aware of the antiseptic hallway light spilling into the
room.
 
Footsteps, slow and steady, thudded
across the floor.
 
They didn’t sound like
sandals.
 
Gage wondered if the drape
between the two rooms was swaying.

And
please, don’t look at the open wall outlet.

The
steps stopped in the bedroom, by the bed.

“Bé, bé, aquí està el senyor
important,”
came the deep, raspy voice, speaking
Catalan.
 
Gage felt something prod the
bed.
 
Feigning sleep, he turned,
shielding his eyes.

Standing
there above him was a guard Gage recognized by silhouette—the one Gage called
“Weeble Wobble” because of his pear shape.
 
He usually worked nights, dragging his baton along the bars to awaken
the inmates as he prowled.
 
Short and quite
portly about the midsection, the guard’s belly strained his uniform shirt,
making Gage briefly wonder if the thread on his buttons had ever been
reinforced.
 
Though the guard’s wide face
was cast in heavy shadows, Gage could feel a malevolent air coming from the
man.

“Habla
Espanol?” Gage asked.
 
“Yo no hablo
càtalan.”

“Sí,
sí, Espanol,” the guard chuckled, switching to Spanish.
 
“You’re a very important man, Señor
Harris.
 
I was told by my night commander
not to bother you by orders of la capitana.”

Gage
didn’t like where this was headed.

“Have
you anything to say?” the guard asked.

“Just
trying to sleep,” Gage said, making his voice slack in a poor acting job.

“Good,
good,” the guard said.
 
“My friend, El
Toro, told me to tell you to sleep well, important man.
 
He said you will have something for him
tomorrow morning by nine.
 
And nine will
come soon.
 
So, roll over now,
puta
, and go back to sleep.”

Gage
stared at the man.

“Roll
over,” the guard said, an edge in his voice.

Reluctantly,
Gage rolled over.
 
The guard’s feet
scraped once, making Gage hope he was taking his leave.

And please, mister, don’t look at
that wall outlet because I
—

His
thoughts were cut short by the brief slicing of air.
 
And, in that fraction of a second, Gage’s
experienced ears knew exactly what was coming.
 
The sound was made by the baton.
 
The ripping air was loud enough, and of enough duration, that Gage knew
the guard had taken a mighty swat, not unlike a clean-up hitter swinging for
the fences.
 
Still, in that tedious
fraction of a second, Gage ruefully wondered where the guard was aiming.
 
If it was a head strike, it might be
fatal.
 
A body blow would certainly break
ribs.
 
He thought about the wounds on his
back and shoulder, knowing such a blow would rip them—

The
baton thudded home, making Gage growl in pain.

But
he remained mostly still.

Let it burn, Gage.
 
Let it burn.
 
Take it as further tax for this foolhardy job you accepted
.

Footsteps
shuffling idly away, and whistling, followed by, “Sleep well, princess.”
 
The door slammed, the bolt shot, and Gage was
left with a searing kidney.

And
relief.

Chapter Twenty-Two

A
lake breeze whispered through the evergreens, bringing with it the smells of
the lake’s sulfury water mingled with the fragrant scent of the hillside Aleppo
pines.
 
Crickets chirped at a
near-deafening volume but, at the same time, the sound didn’t seem too loud or
out of place.
 
It was the chorus of
summertime in the country.

Justina
was quite full, having enjoyed a sumptuous meal of salad, shrimp, fresh
vegetables, and rice, at Señora Moreno’s cozy home.
 
Señora Moreno had sautéed nearly everything
in heavy enamel cookware.
 
The food had
been liberally spiced and, though the extreme amount of spices Justina had seen
go into the dishes worried her, the dinner wound up being delicious.
 
In fact, though they’d spent nearly every evening
together, it was Señora Moreno’s finest culinary creation to date.

And
that was saying something.

Justina’s
cabin was only a kilometer from Señora Moreno’s.
 
Oh, how
good would a cigarette taste right now
, she thought, her feet scraping
along the gravel road.
 
No.
 
I
told him I would quit.
 
I haven’t broken
down once.
 
Each day without a cigarette
is a victory.
 
To yield now would only
invite the habit back.

She
recalled her final night with Gage, and the way he’d squeezed her so
tightly.
 
She’d hardly been able to
breathe but, at the same time, it had been heaven.
 
The mere thought of Gage’s pleasant presence
provided a stab of melancholy to Justina’s stroll, making her realize how
intense her short time with him had been.
 
She touched her stomach through her thin top, remembering his powerful
hands, marked by their rough skin, and how he would hold her to him as he
slept, their bodies entwined but providing complete comfort for slumber.

Tears
arrived like uninvited guests.
 
She wiped
her face, glumly kicking at stones, coming around the bend to see the sparse
indoor lights of her cabin ahead.
 
She’d
forgotten to leave the porch light on.
 
Moments later, when she arrived on the darkened porch, she briefly
wished she’d not left the comfy confines of Señora Moreno’s home.
 
For the past two hours they’d done nothing
but talk.
 
They talked about life.
 
About their families.
 
And after hearing much more about Señora
Moreno’s late daughter, they talked about Gage.
 
And talking about it, in someone else’s presence, had made Justina feel
almost as if Gage had been there, living the story with her.

But
now, all that awaited her was the cold loneliness of the cabin.
 
The quiet bed.
 
The lifeless kitchen.
 
She thought back to her life in Lloret,
living in a filthy bay with a host of other women.
 
But even there, though she’d hated it at the
time, at least she’d had companionship, grating as it often was.

“Be
inside, Gage,” she whispered, pushing the glinting silver key into the
lock.
 
“Surprise me and be inside, ready
to hug me and shower me with kisses.”

A
turn of the key.

A
click of the knob.

The
smells of her new life.

She’d
left a few lights on in the bedroom, casting amber light into the sitting room.

The
cabin was deathly silent.

Justina
was all alone.

Surprising
even herself, she screamed out his name.

* * *

Gage
did ultimately vomit, twice, turning on the lamp to inspect the vomitus for
blood.
 
Though he didn’t want to, he made
himself urinate, wincing from the pain.
 
Again, no blood.
 
He knew,
however, that a kidney strike like the one he’d taken could take hours, or days
even, to show itself in the form of an infection.
 

Again
playing for the cameras, Gage staggered back to his bed, imagining the guard
watching him on closed circuit, laughing with his buddies.
 
Fat
little prick
.
 
Gage pulled the
blanket up and switched off the lamp.
 
He
waited five minutes before painfully creeping back to the outlet, phone in
hand, back to the strip of light.

This
time, despite the biting of stiff copper wires into his flesh, he twisted each
one tightly, checking to make sure all were secure enough to remain fast in a
tug.
 
Lifting the telephone, Gage tapped
the switch hook three times and held the phone to his ear.

Dial tone!

After
murmuring a litany of thanks, Gage squeezed his eyes shut, recalling the
numbers to the prepaid wireless phone he and Justina purchased on his last full
day.
 
A few numbers into the dialing
sequence he heard something that sounded like a fast busy signal.
 
Slow
down, Gage
.
 
He hung up then pressed
nine, listening as the dial tone blipped before it went back to normal.
 
He dialed the number again, waiting…waiting,
finally hearing a low, steady buzz that represented the Spanish phone line’s
connection.
 
After two rings he smacked
the floor when an automated message answered, telling him in computer-generated
español that the number he’d dialed was long distance and could he please try
the number again.
 
He did, hoping the
prison’s phone system would accept the long distance call.
 
It didn’t, and this time he received a
different message.

Thankful
that he’d memorized the toll-free access number, he dialed it followed by his
calling card number.
 
Gage listened,
punching his leg when the nice woman informed him that he had only two minutes
remaining and asked if he would he like to purchase more time.

No! No! No! That’s why you never
wait to recharge your calling card, Gage.
 
Damn it!

Gage
had memorized a host of numbers, but he’d never memorized the damned number to
his own low-limit Visa card and now here he was, with two measly minutes to get
his point across.

He
pressed “1” to put the call through, listening to the ringing,
listening…listening…voice mail.
 
“Are you
frigging kidding me?” he mouthed.
 
He repeated
the process again, getting voice mail after going through the maddening series
of numbers.
 
A third time, same result.

His
lower back throbbing, his mouth parched, Gage stood in the dark room, wanting
to yell.
 
Instead, he stretched.
 
Stretched his neck.
 
Stretched his back—
pain
.
 
Put each hand, one at
a time, between his shoulder blades and tugged on his elbows to give his
triceps a good stretch.
 
Stretched his
quads and, leaning against the wall, his calves.
 
Feeling about one percent better, he squatted
to his makeshift phone, almost laughing at the impotency of having a phone in
jail but no way to use it.

For
the third time he dialed the numbers, fighting the urge to break something when
the operator told him he had only one minute remaining.
 
He’d burned up the other minute listening,
each time, to the blasted voice mail message.

Shit
.

Hoping
the AT&T computer kept track of minute fractions he stabbed the number “1,”
steadying himself as he prepared for the voice mail.

But
this time, to his gleeful surprise, a groggy Justina answered.

Gage
spoke at machine-gun pace.
 
“Justina, listen
to me and don’t talk.
 
We have
one-minute, and that’s it.
 
First, no
matter what happens, don’t call this number.
 
Don’t call it and don’t speak to anyone other than who I tell you to,
okay?”

“Gage,
what in the world are you—”

“Justina!”
he barked.
 
“I’m sorry to be short but
there’s no time.
 
Listen, the man in the
government—Acusador Redon, from Barcelona—double-crossed me.
 
I need you to go to the American Consulate General
there and tell them
everything
,
Justina.
 
Tell them everything you know
and tell them I’m being held ransom here, okay?
 
Tell them to call Colonel Hunter, too.”

“What?
 
You mean you’re not coming home in the next
few—”

“Just
tell me what I said!”

“Acusador
Redon in Barcelona double-crossed you.
 
Go to the American Consulate and tell them everything.
 
Call Colonel Hunter, too.”

“Leave
now.
 
Get rid of this phone, too, because
I don’t want anyone tracking you.
 
Leave
now and find someplace safe and hole up until morning, but get away from that
cabin and go tomorrow, as quickly as you can.”

“Okay,
Gage,” she answered, voice trembling.

“Also,
Justina, make sure you leave the remaining money in the cabin with one of my
pistols.
 
Take a little to Barcelona,
just what you need, but—”

The
line clicked, followed by the friendly AT&T computer operator informing
Gage that, if he wanted to continue, he would need to pay the piper.

Flattening
himself on the cold concrete floor, Gage lay there, staring up into the
darkness.
 
Then, futilely, he tried to
make a collect call to Justina.
 
The
operator, a nice enough lady, came back and gently told him that doing such a
thing wasn’t possible to a prepaid cellular and the phone he was trying to call
was definitely a prepaid cellular.

It
was all Gage could do not to yell.

Justina is smart.
 
She’ll do her part.

After
calming himself, he repeated the process, informing another operator that he’d
like to make a collect call to the United States, to Colonel Hunter.
 
To Gage’s surprise, the operator put the call
through.
 
Gage listened to the ringing
and to the brief conversation as Hunter accepted the charges.
 
When the operator clicked off, Hunter became
immediately terse, the way he always did when during periods of high stress.

“Where
are you?”

“Still
in Berga, sir.
 
I’ve been
double-crossed.”

“No
shit.
 
I never got your paperwork and
then I started getting pieces of intel from all the hooks I’d put in the
water.”

“Listen,
sir, I’m on an unsecure line that could be compromised any second.
 
I need you to get me out or I’m going to have
to do something drastic that probably won’t end well.”

“That’s
the problem, son.
 
I’ve been trying for a
full week to get you out.
 
No one’ll do a
damned thing to help.”

The
room suddenly became cold.
 
“Explain
that, sir.”

“When
I didn’t get your paperwork, I called my guy there, the one who gave me the
intel on that lawyer, Redon.
 
My guy
confirmed you got sent up to Berga.
 
He
did some digging and couldn’t find shit about you being undercover.”

“Wouldn’t
that kind of thing be compartmentalized?” Gage asked, more hopeful than
confident.

“It
would, but he knows the lady who heads up their
Audiencia Nacional
. She pulled every scrap on you.
 
There was nothing but papers showing you as a
normal murderer.
 
Then she pulled all the
undercovers in Spanish prisons, even the ones that had just been filed.
 
Nothing there either.”
 
Hunter cleared his throat.
 
“We didn’t connect you to Redon, with her,
however.
 
I was concerned that, if the
wrong people got wind of it, doing that might get you killed.
 
Since then, my guy there has called in every
marker he’s owed and no one has near enough juice to even get your case
reviewed.”

“So
everything Redon said was lip service.”

“There’s
more.”

“Navarro,”
Gage said flatly.

“You
know what happened?”

“I
do.
 
And yesterday I watched the local
gang here give the son a Colombian necktie.”

“Have
they connected you with him?”

“Oh,
yeah.
 
They want the money I was paid or
they’re going to kill me, too.
 
For the
moment, that cash is all that’s keeping me alive.”
 
Gage let that sink in.
 
“But I know as soon as I hand over the money,
they’re going to kill me, regardless.”