James Grippando - When Darkness Falls

“A couple more minutes, Falcon,” said Swyteck. “Alicia’s on her way.”

Falcon grunted a reply of some kind, but it wasn’t even in English. His memories had him thinking in Spanish, his native tongue.

Mandar para arriba. Send them up. El Oso had been waiting for the order, and it came in those exact words from the commissioned officer. It came just as soon as the doctor had administered the last of the injections and disappeared into the cockpit, literally turning his back on the prisoners-his patients. The physician’s own “disappearance” was an ironic charade, a way to serve the regime and maintain merely technical compliance with his Hippocratic oath. When the doctor was gone, El Oso’s work began. He unbuckled his seat belt, rose, and started toward the row of naked, sleeping prisoners. Among them were the young and not so young, men and women alike. Some bore the burn marks of the grill. Others were bruised from relentless beatings. A skilled torturer could implement the tactics of “special interrogation” without leaving such marks, but finesse of that sort was completely unnecessary in the case of prisoners who were being “sent up.” El Oso worked in a two-man team. They started with the prisoner nearest the hatch, a man who was perhaps in his early twenties, perhaps even younger. El Oso took his arms. His teammate took the prisoner’s ankles. They lifted him up from the floor. In the prisoner’s unconscious state, his body sagged between them and hung before the open hatchway like a broad, sadistic smile.

“Are you still there, Falcon?”

“I’ve had it with this! Stop stalling. Where’s Alicia?” It was a coherent response, and it took every ounce of psychological fortitude for Falcon to string the words together. Even so, he wasn’t strong enough to pull himself up from the past. The lucid moment, however, had managed to shift his focus slightly. It was suddenly as if El Oso were another man entirely, someone whom Falcon didn’t even want to know. This stranger called El Oso was working furiously but in sync with his teammate, swaying the bodies back and forth as if rocking a hammock. They would release on the count of tres, “sending up” the prisoners only in the most figurative sense, as the bodies would soon plunge into the cold, black ocean below, into the depths of the disappeared. The young man went first, then a woman, followed by two men who looked like brothers, an older woman, and so on. Grab the ankles, swing the body, and release. El Oso was on autopilot, discharging his duty with “subordination and courage, to serve the Fatherland,” in accordance with the detention center’s ritual salute. He’d lost count of the prisoners that had, by his own hands, passed through the hatchway. His movements became almost robotic as he disposed of one subversive after another. Their faces were without expression, their transformation into zombies having begun hours earlier, back at the detention center, with the first injection of penthonaval. They went out without a sound, without any knowledge of their fate, without any final scorn for their murderers-until it was the turn of a certain young woman, who suddenly slipped free from El Oso’s grasp and grabbed him by the wrist.

Perhaps she hadn’t been dosed properly. Or maybe it was her extraordinary will to survive that had fought off the sedative and roused her to a state of semiconsciousness. Whatever the explanation, she had found the strength to reach for El Oso and grab him tightly enough to draw him halfway into the open hatchway. At the last second, he managed to brace himself against the frame with his right foot, and his teammate snagged him by the arm. He was staring into empty space, inches away from his own death at the hands of this young woman whose face was no longer without expression. She was no longer just another subversive. She fought with the determination of the young mother she was, and before she disappeared into the darkness, El Oso was struck by a bolt of recognition: he knew that it was La Cacha prisoner 309.

“Damn it, Swyteck! Put Alicia Mendoza on the phone right now!”

“I just need another minute. I swear, she’s almost here.”

Falcon pushed his memories aside, shoved them right through that yawning black hole in the back of the Skyvan, but the young mother’s face was forever lighted in his mind.

He went to Theo and put a gun to the prisoner’s head. “You’ve got one minute, Swyteck. Your buddy’s got one more minute.”

I ’m here!”

Jack heard Alicia announce her arrival just a split second before the door flew open and she hurried into the mobile command unit.

“Where the heck have you been?” said Jack.

“My parents’ house.”

“Sergeant Paulo has been psycho calling you for almost fifteen minutes. Why didn’t you answer?”

“It’s complicated.”

Jack couldn’t contain his reaction. “What do you mean it’s-”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Vince, interrupting. “She’s here, and there isn’t time for this. Alicia, I need you on the phone right now.”

“Okay.” She moved closer to the desk and took the empty seat by the phone. “What should I say?”

“Just say ‘Hello, this is Alicia Mendoza.’ Then hand the phone back to me.”

Jack said, “That’s not going to satisfy him. In fact, teasing him like that might only infuriate him and make him take it out on Theo.”

“This is negotiation, not capitulation. We let him know that Alicia’s ready to talk to him. Then I get back on the line and make him give up a hostage to get past ‘hello.’”

Jack felt a moment of anxiety, but he knew that if it were anyone but his best friend in that motel room with a gun to his head, he would have agreed wholeheartedly with Paulo’s negotiation strategy. Jack had to remain objective. “All right. But Falcon’s very close to the edge.”

“We all are,” said Paulo. He handed the phone to Alicia. She breathed in and out to compose herself, then spoke in a voice that was almost too pleasant for the circumstances. “Falcon, this is Alicia Mendoza.”

There was silence. Vince took the phone back, but he didn’t speak.

“Alicia? Is that you?” said Falcon.

“It was,” said Paulo. “She’s ready and willing to talk to you, Falcon. All you have to do is let one hostage go.”

“Put Alicia back on.”

“I will. But I need something in return. It’s not too much to ask. Just let one of the hostages go.”

“I need to speak to Alicia.”

“I understand that.”

“I just want to say two words to her.”

“I’ll give you two minutes with her if you let one of the hostages go.”

“I don’t need two minutes! Now put her on the phone, damn it!”

“I can’t do that, Falcon.”

“Don’t lie to me! You can do whatever you want.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that, because all I really want is to get the hostages and you out of this mess safely. So let’s help each other here, Falcon. Let’s help each other get what we want.”

“Okay, how’s this for help? I got a gun to the black guy’s head. Just let me talk to Alicia, and you can have him alive. Just two words.”

Paulo paused, considering it. “Two words, and you give me Theo Knight.”

“That’s all I want.”

“All right,” said Paulo. “I’ll put her on.”

He hit the mute button and handed her the phone. “When I cut off the mute button, tell him you’re back on the line. But don’t tell him anything more. I’m cutting him off after two words.”

Jack said, “I don’t think he literally meant two words.”

“I don’t care,” said Paulo. “The deal was that he gets to say two words to Alicia and then he releases Theo Knight.”