Andrew Klavan - If We Survive

“So,” said Mendoza, “who will volunteer to go first?” He put his hands behind his back. Moved from one to the other of us as if he were a shopper looking at neckties, pondering the positives and negatives of each selection. Oh, he was having a good time now, Mendoza was. He considered Jim first. “Perhaps it will be you. Since you have so much respect for our president. Perhaps you are eager to explain your actions.”

Jim’s mouth opened and closed like he was a fish out of water. “I… I…,” he said very softly.

But Mendoza had already turned away from him, had already turned to me.

He stood over me, his black eyes boring into me, full of good humor and anticipation. My mind started to race over all the things they would do to me to cause me pain. Suspend the imagination, I thought desperately. Don’t worry about anything. Pray about everything instead . But Mendoza’s eyes seemed to empty me of everything but terror and I stood there, unable to think, unable to speak, unable to move.

“What about you, my young friend?” he asked. “You are the gallant gentleman, as I remember. You are the one who stands up for the ladies, yes?”

He paused for me to answer, but all I could do was lick my dry lips, my hands trembling at my sides.

“Well, since you like the ladies so much,” Mendoza went on, “perhaps you would enjoy watching me question them first…”

“You thug!” I screamed—and my voice cracked so that I sounded about twelve years old. Tears filled my eyes. “You dirty gangster thug, I wish I could…”

“Shut up, kid!” Palmer barked at me.

But Mendoza only laughed. He waved Palmer quiet. “No, no,” he said. “Let the gallant gentleman speak his mind. He will be speaking even more of his mind before long.” He stopped smiling suddenly. “Before long, he will see things and experience things he has not even imagined.”

I wiped angrily at my eyes with my hand. I wanted to wipe that arrogance off Mendoza’s face with my fist. I wanted to knock him right through the dungeon wall. But I knew if I tried it, one of those gunmen would pound me senseless. So I just stood there, furious. I’ve never felt so helpless in my life.

And Mendoza, to rub the insult in, sneered with disdain and turned his back on me. He returned to stand in front of Palmer, as he had before. Smiling, just as he had before.

“But all in all, I think we should begin with you, Señor Dunn,” he said. “These others—they are really only children, isn’t it so?”

Palmer nodded. He still looked relaxed—he still wore his mocking half smile—and his eyes were still a warrior’s eyes. “Yes,” he said. “It’s so.”

“Spoiled American children who have lived their rich, free, peaceful American lives and don’t know what the real world is,” said Mendoza casually, as if he were just making conversation. “They think a tragedy is when they can’t afford the car they want or to buy a new telephone.”

“That’s right,” Palmer said.

“ You are their only strength. You are their real power. You are the one thing that has kept them alive in this country. Am I right?”

“Pretty close,” Palmer said.

“Mm,” Mendoza said. And grinning, he went on: “And when they see that you are broken, when they see you on your knees, weeping and begging me for mercy, then they will know that there is no hope for them.”

And Palmer—so help me, I’m not making this up— Palmer grinned right back at him. As if he and Mendoza were just two old friends chatting. And he said, “That’s right, Señor Mendoza. That’s exactly right. When they see me on my knees begging you for mercy—or begging you for anything— that’s when they’ll know there’s no hope left at all.”

I think it took Mendoza a moment to understand what Palmer had just said. He started to laugh—and then abruptly he stopped laughing. Because, of course, Palmer was telling him that we would never see that, we would never see him broken, there would never come a time when our hope was gone.

And it was as if Palmer had slapped the rebel without moving a muscle. Mendoza’s face convulsed, his lips twisting down, his eyes flashing with rage. As he had with me, he turned his back on Palmer. He walked away from him, back toward the cell door. And as he did, he snapped his fingers at the two gunmen.

“Bring him to the interrogation room,” he said.

At once, the two gunmen charged forward and seized Palmer by the arms.

One second later they were both dead.

I never saw a human being move so fast. It was some sort of serious kung fu movie action, over so quickly my eye couldn’t even record it in detail. I remember moments of it—like snapshots kind of, frozen in my brain. Palmer’s open hand jabbing up like a knife. The same hand slicing like a sword. The one guard reeling backward, his mouth open, his tongue out, his eyes wide. The other guard folding at the knees and collapsing to the floor like a dropped rag doll. And Palmer’s arms wheeling around—like he was doing some kind of magic act, you know, trying to distract your attention. But what he was doing was twisting the second guard’s rifle off his shoulder even before the guard had time to drop.

Before I could comprehend what had happened—before my mind could even register what I’d just seen—the two guards lay lifeless on the floor and Palmer stood alone with a machine gun in his hand, the barrel leveled straight at Mendoza.

And there was one final snapshot captured by my brain— my favorite snapshot.

Mendoza, remember, had turned his back on Palmer. He was walking to the door. When the fight started behind him, he heard the noise and wheeled around—but it was all over so fast that by the time he was facing Palmer again, Palmer had the gun on him. So I caught this final image of the look on Mendoza’s face, pure shock, the arrogance draining out of his eyes, the color draining out of his cheeks. His hand had gone automatically to the pistol on his belt… but it was already too late.

“Go on,” Palmer said quietly—smiling, grinning just like before. “Go on. Pull it, Mendoza. I want you to.”

But Mendoza took one look at Palmer—Palmer standing between the corpses of the two gunmen on the floor—and he knew the American would empty the machine gun into him before the pistol got halfway out of that holster. His hand moved away from it. Both his hands lifted from his sides.

I hate to remember what went through me then. Seeing Mendoza standing there at gunpoint, I felt a lightning flash of rage and hatred in me so terrible it seemed almost to take me over. I felt I had no control over myself—that the power of my rage was forcing me into motion. Because there was Mendoza—Mendoza who had threatened me when I was helpless—who had threatened Nicki and Meredith just seconds ago—threatened us all with terrible tortures. And now he was the helpless one, all his power gone. And my rage and hatred for him had taken me over and were telling me to launch myself at him, to wrap my fingers around his ugly throat and…

“Easy, kid,” said Palmer. “We’re the good guys. Remember?”

I don’t know how he knew what was going on inside me. I hadn’t moved from the spot. I hadn’t said a word. But he did know somehow. And the moment he spoke, I did remember. I remembered who I was, what I was. And it turned out the electric rage and hatred could not control me after all.

The emotion drained out of me almost at once. My hands, which had curled into claws ready for the attack, relaxed. My arms fell to my sides.

It was a moment that would come back to me later. It was a moment that would come back to me a lot and for a long time.