When Court was told about the impending journey north to the work camps, he stunned his interrogators.
“Okay, I’m done with this shit. I’ll give you the names of my contacts in Vientiane, bank account numbers, tell you where we pick up the poppy and how we get it over the Mekong into Thailand.”
Both men’s eyes turned away from the Muay Lao match on the TV and locked on the gaunt, sweat-soaked man sitting in front of them.
“Yes. You talk now!” ordered the senior man.
“No. It’s better I write it all down. Easier for you to understand.”
Both men nodded. “Yes.”
“But I want some things from you.”
“What you want?” Fresh suspicion dulled the pleased expression on the men’s faces.
“My friend is hurt. I want his head bandaged. Carefully bandaged.”
The senior man waved a hand through the air. “No problem.”
“I want a warm, dry blanket. I want a bottle of that water you guys are drinking.” He pointed to a plastic two-liter jug on the table. Again, the interrogators nodded. “What else?”
“I guess some paper and something to write with would be good.”
The guards bandaged Eddie with Court lying nearby in the cell and admonishing them with his frail voice and weak gestures, ordering them to use more gauze and more tape. At first Gamble tried to push them away, insisting that the knot on his head did not need to be mummified in order to heal. But Court was adamant, and finally Eddie relented and let Court take charge of his medical care.
Court had his pad and his pen and a fresh wool blanket, and he wrote down notes throughout the afternoon and evening. During the night he opened the bottle and drank most of the clean water himself, only passing the last few swigs over to the man who’d been keeping him alive. Eddie took it and polished it off greedily, but only after Court assured him he’d had all he wanted.
When the daily ration was brought the next morning, Court surprised Eddie. “I’m taking all your food.”
“No, I’m giving you half. Holding your sweaty ass up over the shitter burns a lot of calories, amigo.”
“Look, I need some extra strength today.” Court pulled both tin plates over in front of him as he spoke.
“What for? What’s going to happen?”
“If it doesn’t work out, I’d rather you didn’t know. It might be better for you that way.”
Eddie looked worried. “C’mon, Sally. You aren’t in any condition to try anything. Let me talk to the guards today; if they think you are giving up some intel and I offer up some disinformation, then maybe they’ll come through with that medicine you need.”
“No . . . This isn’t about me getting medicine. It’s about getting the hell out of here.” Court began eating from both plates. Gamble looked on hungrily. Between bites of turnip and slurps of bone broth, Court said, “Oh yeah, one more thing. I need all your bandages.”
Slowly, with no idea what the hell was going on, Eddie Gamble took the gauze and the tape from his head and handed it over.
Court spent the next half hour lying on his side under his blanket, his back to his fellow prisoner. Eddie asked over and over what was going to happen, but his cellmate would not answer.
The guards came to take Eddie to his interrogation. As they left, Court called out. “Tell them that I need another pen. This one ran out of ink. If they bring it before I go up, then I’ll have my list ready.”
Eddie looked at him a long time before relaying the message. It was obvious that he could tell something was about to go down, and he was more worried than excited.
When the door shut on Eddie and the two guards, Court used all the strength the bottle of clean water and two full meals had given him to crawl over to the cell door. He pulled out the pen he’d been given the day before, cracked it open, then removed the ink reservoir from the plastic grip. He reached through the bars, slid the ball of the pen into the lock, and felt his way through the tumblers with a shaky but practiced hand. He’d played with the lock for several days running while Eddie slept, had used lengths of straw to feel into its recesses to reveal its secrets. Using one of the broken plastic pieces as a tension wrench, he turned the cylinder. He’d accomplished this feat literally thousands of times in his training at the CIA’s Autonomous Asset Development Program in Harvey Point, North Carolina, and this lock was actually much easier to defeat than most of the ones he’d been trained on.
The cell door popped open in seconds.
TEN
Court walked with Elena for nearly a mile through San Blas; the pregnant woman looked perfectly comfortable with the effort, though sweat covered her light brown skin. They passed roadside restaurants, the bus station; they strolled past stray dogs sleeping in the town square, chickens pecking for bugs in a garbage dump. Turning south, Elena went through an open-air vegetable market and bought a few bags of yams and mangoes. Court had questions for her; he could not help it. He learned that she was from Guadalajara, had met Eddie when he was a DEA agent working there, and they’d married shortly before he re-emigrated to Mexico to join the Policía Federal five years earlier. They’d bought a house in San Blas to be near his family, as she had no close relatives of her own.