Stephen Leather - Breakout

‘I hear you, Lex.’

‘And keep those broken teeth covered up when you’re at the gates here, or the guards may twig who you are. I’ve sprung you once but I’m not sure I’ll be able to do it again if you’re spotted. So say as little as possible and if you have to talk, do it without moving your lips much or cover your mouth with your hand.’He looked at his watch. ‘Okay, they should be opening the gates any minute. Time to go.’ He eased the cell door open, checked for signs of any unusual activity in the yard outside and then nodded and beckoned Scouse to follow him. Harper and the others went with him to the main courtyard and watched as Scouse walked up to the guards. He handed over the bribe, waited while the guards checked the number on his arm, retrieved Harper’s fake passport, and crossed out the entry in the ledger. They then held the gate open for him and he strolled out into the square. He walked a few more yards, then showed a bit of his old swagger as he turned to give a salute to Harper, before hurrying away.

‘And now?’ Lupa said.

‘We give Scouse ten minutes to get back to the hotel and off the streets, and then we head for the exit ourselves. I’m hoping that a bit of front and a healthy wad of dollars will solve all problems.’

‘And if it doesn’t?’

‘Then we’ll have to improvise.’

They waited another ten minutes and then Harper led them towards the gates. However, when he showed the guards the number on his arm, they ignored the bribe he produced and instead of letting them out, they escorted the three of them to the chief warden’s office.

‘We’re ready to leave now,’ Harper said. ‘Thank you for your hospitality. I just need my passport back and then I’ll be on my way.’ He showed him the number inked on his arm.

Fernandez glanced at the ledger that one of his juniors pushed in front of him, then gave Harper a cold stare. ‘There must be some mistake, señor , the person with that number has already left San Pedro. So your number must be a forgery and therefore you are a prisoner trying to escape.’

‘But he was the prisoner, he just pretended to be me. Look at the picture in my passport, if you don’t believe me.’

‘He took his passport with him.’

‘Then look at me. You must remember me, I’ve been in your office a couple of times in the last few days.’

The chief warden shrugged. ‘A lot of people pass through this office, señor , you cannot expect me to remember them all.’

Harper spread his hands. ‘All right. How much money do you want?’

‘It is not a matter of money.’

‘It’s always a matter of money.’ He studied Fernandez for a few moments. ‘Shall we say $500 to make this problem go away?’

The chief warden gave a crooked smile. ‘It is a very big problem.’

‘How big?’

‘Nothing less than a thousand dollars would solve it.’

‘Then a thousand dollars it is, but obviously I don’t have that kind of money on me, I’ll have to get it for you.’

‘You will need to send someone to do so, because you do not leave here without it.’

‘But if I don’t go out to get it, you won’t get your money.’

‘You have things the wrong way round, señor . If you don’t get me the money, you will never get out of here.’ Fernandez glanced at Lupa, running the tip of his tongue over his lips as he did so. ‘You can send the pretty señorita to get your money, but you stay here.’

Harper calculated the odds. He was confident he could deal with the chief warden and the watching guard, but that still left up to ten other guards to deal with, most of them carrying pistols and two of them armed with rifles who were well out of his reach in the watchtowers. Those odds were too steep to even contemplate, so he gave a reluctant nod. ‘Okay, let Lupa out and she can bring the money here.’

‘One of my guards will accompany her.’

‘No he won’t. You have me and her brother as guarantees that she will return. I am not going to allow a guard to witness how and where she obtains the money.’

The chief warden gave a dismissive wave of his hand. ‘As you please, but if she does not return, you can imagine the consequences.’

‘Trust me, she will return.’

‘It is precisely because I do not trust you, señor , that I am taking the precaution of keeping you and her brother here.’

Harper took Lupa on one side and whispered in her ear, telling her where he’d hidden his money in his hotel room. There was close to ten thousand dollars under the mattress.

Harper and Ricardo watched from the main prison yard as Lupa walked out through the main gates. He was pleased to note that as she crossed the square in front of the prison, she paused twice and glanced behind her to make sure she was not being followed, before moving on.

She was gone for almost two hours and Harper was just beginning to feel a little anxious, worried less that she might have double-crossed him than that she might have been robbed by some opportunist thief. He heaved a sigh of relief as he saw her familiar slight figure picking her way through the crowds outside the prison and approaching the gates.

She was held at the gates for some minutes, before being ushered into the prison and taken straight to the chief warden’s office. When Harper and Ricardo tried to follow her, they found their way barred by four guards, all with pistols drawn.

‘I don’t like it,’ Harper said, out of the side of his mouth. ‘I’m sensing a double-cross.’

‘Not by Lupa?’

‘Of course not, by the chief warden.’

She did not reappear until twenty minutes later and when she did she was ashen-faced, and being frog-marched by one of the guards. Flanked by two more of them, Fernandez lumbered down the steps behind her. He was scowling and there was the vivid red imprint of a hand on his cheek and four parallel scratches down his face.

Screened by his guards, he came to a stop facing Harper. ‘Your girlfriend has stolen your money, señor . She came back here offering to have sex with me instead. When I refused, she attacked me. So there has been a change of circumstances; all of you will now be remaining here as prisoners. You will be charged with aiding and abetting the escape of a prisoner and attempted bribery, and will face trial in due course.’

‘He’s lying Lex,’ Lupa said. ‘He took the money, tried to rape me and is now trying to cover it up.’

‘I know that,’ Harper said, keeping his voice low. ‘But there’s nothing we can do about it now. We’re unarmed and there are too many guards protecting him. If we try anything, we risk being shut in the punishment block and that will make escape much harder. So we need to back down now, get back to the cell and then plan our next move.’

Before they could do so, there was a sudden flurry of activity at the gates. One of the guards, who had strolled off in the direction of the poorer sections that contained the punishment block a few minutes earlier, came sprinting back, shouting to his comrades. The gates were immediately locked and barred, all the prisoners and visitors were instructed to remain motionless where they were and a head count was begun in every section of the jail.

The count was done and then re-done, and there was much head-shaking as the numbers were tallied. From the guards’ conversations, overheard by Ricardo and Lupa, the total number of prisoners and visitors - dead and alive - appeared to tally exactly with the prison records, and yet one of the punishment cells now stood empty, but for the bodies of the two thugs who had been guarding it, and its former occupant had disappeared without trace. Harper, Lupa and Ricardo could have enlightened them about why that was, but although the other two exchanged worried looks, all remained silent. Harper maintained his normal cool outward air in front of them, but he was on maximum alert, watching for any hint of a threat to them, either from the guards or from Don Lorenzo. He must now have been aware that two of his men were dead, and would have been able to make a pretty shrewd guess about who was responsible.