Stephen Leather - Breakout

‘And where will you be señor , while all this is going on?’ one of them asked, a man with the battered looks and mean air of a bar-room brawler. ‘Will you be sipping Singani and waiting for us to do your dirty work for you?’

‘No, I’ll be dealing with the guards with rifles up in the towers. If you think you know how to do that and have a better chance than me of coming out of it alive, then you’re welcome to try.’ Harper kept staring at the man until he dropped his gaze. ‘However, you look like you can handle yourself in a fight, so make sure you’re in the front rank when you’re crowding around the guards.’ His glance swept over the rest of them. ‘Anyone else got any other objections?’

No one spoke and after waiting a few more seconds, he said ‘Right, just two more things I need to emphasise to you. Firstly, if this works - and there’s no reason why it won’t - in a few hours from now, you could be in charge of San Pedro. The obvious temptation - and I’m sure it will be your first instinct - will be to throw the gates wide open and let everyone out. But if you do that, even your shambolic government here will not be able to ignore a tidal wave of thugs, armed robbers and murderers being unleashed on to the streets of La Paz, and they will be forced to take action. They will almost certainly not only bring in more police but the army as well to restore order and round up the escapees, and they won’t be too choosy about the methods they use or the casualties they cause.’

He paused to let that sink in before continuing. ‘It also means that your chance to run the place and start collecting the bribes and kick-backs that the guards have been pocketing will have gone. So my very strong recommendation to you is that the first thing you should be doing if we do manage to overthrow the current regime is to secure the gates and stop a mass escape.

‘My second recommendation is this: You know what it’s like to be at the bottom of the heap - that’s where you are right now, isn’t it? So if and when you get to be the ones who are collecting the bribes and kick-backs, how about pledging to yourselves and the other inhabitants of this place that you’ll share some of the wealth around, so that every inmate benefits to some extent from the money you’re collecting. It’s not just a matter of doing the right thing, because if everyone has a stake in the system and is earning a few Bolivianos from it, then visitors will go unmolested, the overall amount of money available will increase and everyone will be happy - or happier anyway. Not only that, but your job of running the place will be a whole lot easier. Okay?’ The men nodded and no one seemed to disagree with him. ‘Right, then let’s get to work.’

He first made them go through a series of rehearsals, using the entrance to the passageway leading out of the yard to stand in for the front gates, with most of the members of his ragged army practising crowding in and jostling a few of the other inmates who were posing as the guards. ‘That’s good enough,’ he said at last. He glanced at his watch. ‘It’ll have to be, because we’re getting tight for time. He took the last of his once fat bundle of dollars out of his pocket. ‘Ricardo, shake the guy who owns the bodega there awake, and buy everyone a drink - a little Dutch courage will help things along - but make sure no-one has more than a couple, because we want them aggressive, not pissed and passed out.’

The eastern sky was already greying at the approach of dawn and while their beggars’ army fuelled up as the sleepy-eyed owner of the bodega sold more alcohol than he had in months, Harper, Ricardo and Lupa discussed the next move. ‘We can march them into the main yard,’ Harper said, ‘but like I just told that bruiser, our big problem is going to be the two guards in the watchtowers. We’re going to have to find a way to deal with them because both of the towers overlook the yard and the gates, and are in line of sight of each other, giving them cross-cover if one is attacked. Both of the guards are armed with rifles, and since those towers are at least twenty metres above the ground and these pop-guns-’ He held up one of their primitive pistols. ‘Only have a killing range of four or five metres, we need to work out a way to deal with them. I’m confident I can climb up one of the towers undetected by the guard in it and take him out, but unless the other guy is asleep on the job, I’m likely to get a bullet between my shoulder blades while I’m doing it.’

He thought for a few moments. ‘How’s your throwing arm, Ricardo?’

‘What about asking me as well?’ Lupa said, indignant.

‘Look, Lupa, this isn’t the moment for a debate about sexism. Blokes tend to be better at throwing things because they’ve got longer, more powerful arms and they tend to have spent a greater part of their youth playing stupid ball games.’ He gave a sly grin. ‘But when I want someone to make a dress for the chief warden or give make-up lessons to the guards, don’t worry, you’ll be first in line.’

She laughed despite herself. ‘You’ll pay for that, you sexist pig.’

‘So Ricardo?’ Harper said.

‘I can throw.’

‘Do you think you can light two or three of these bamboo bombs and throw them so they land close enough to one of the watch towers to make the guard in there shit his pantalones and keep his head down? You don’t have to be able to land one actually in the tower, just lob them on to the roof close enough to make him duck.’

‘Lex,’ Ricardo said, ‘I could do that in my sleep. Even Lupa could manage it.’

Lupa switched her furious scowl from Harper to her brother, but said nothing.

‘If you can do that on my signal,’ Harper said, ‘and keep that guard’s head down for about twenty seconds, that’ll give me enough time to shin up the other tower, wipe out the guard in that one, and then use his rifle to get rid of the other one. And without the guys with rifles up in the towers to pick them off, our ragtag army should be more than enough for the guards on the gates. There are only twelve altogether, we’ll have taken two of them out, and at least four others will be off duty or asleep, so they’ll have a maximum of six guards to deal with. Odds of five to one, you’d bet the farm on that, wouldn’t you?’

‘I guess we’ll have to,’ Lupa said, ‘if we ever want to get out of this place.’

‘Lupa, I’ve two tasks for you. The first is to marshal our army so they don’t all forget their instructions and go flooding out into the main courtyard together. The second is to follow close behind the last group, then move straight across to the western side of the yard where the warden’s office is, and cut the phone line there. It runs across the wall and in through the window frame of his office.’ He held out his knife to her. ‘Use this.’

As the morning light began to strengthen, they set the plan in motion. As arranged, Harper left Lupa to control the beggars’ army, releasing them in twos and threes to make their slow way into the main courtyard. Ricardo went with the first group, walking behind them and using them as a screen to conceal the bamboo grenades he was carrying tucked inside his waistband under his shirt. He took up position in the main courtyard close to the foot of one of the watchtowers and in a place where the long shadows cast by the rising sun partly concealed him from the gaze of the guard in the other tower. He laid the grenades in a row on the ground behind him, took out his disposable lighter and then waited for the signal.

Harper climbed the stairs to the wooden balcony on the first floor of one of the sections near the front of the prison. He grabbed an armful of washing that had been draped over the rail to dry, then took the steps to the top floor and climbed the rickety ladder that led to the roof, used by prisoners every day either to spread their washing or the painted children’s toys some made, on the corrugated metal panels where they could quickly dry in the sun and the perpetual wind from the Altiplano .