“Not without you, amigo,” replied Gamble, and he pulled a gun from one of the dead guards and then heaved Court up and onto his back.
“Give it up! You can’t get me out of here!”
But Gamble ignored the comment. As he fought his way slowly up the stairs, pulling himself upwards with both hands on the wooden railing, struggling with the dead weight of the weak and sick man on top of him, his knees buckled more than once. But he made it to the top of the stairs, out into the one-room shack, and found it empty. He lowered Court to the ground and then grabbed a couple of green ponchos that were hanging from pegs by the door. He dressed Gentry with one and took one for himself. Court fought his way back to his feet on his own, using the desk to help himself climb up. Both men pulled their hoods down over their faces and walked out together, Gentry leaning against his friend.
The late morning rain beat down in near horizontal sheets, obscuring the view from the guard towers and the porches of other shacks around the waterlogged compound. Court stumbled, Eddie grabbed him tighter, and they walked directly across fifty yards of pathways to the motor pool. They passed close enough to a small warehouse to see a group of four soldiers inside, looking out at them in the rain. The men did not come after them, but they did not look away, either.
At the motor pool the men found a dozen jeeps, cars, pickups, and flatbed trucks. Eddie lowered Gentry into the backseat of a small Chinese-made sedan, and then he jumped in the front and dropped down below the steering column.
Court fought to pull himself up to see out the window. He heard the sounds of the DEA man cracking the plastic steering column, cussing in Spanish as he struggled to hot-wire the vehicle with soaking wet hands, poor lighting, and the pervasive threat of imminent death.
Gentry saw them through the rain running down the rear windshield. Two soldiers approaching from the fence line, their wooden-stocked rifles hanging from their shoulders, their poncho hoods obscuring their faces like Grim Reapers. They walked directly towards Eddie and Court.
“Hey!” Court said, “Fast Eddie? You’re gonna be Dead Eddie in about fifteen seconds if you don’t get this thing moving.”
“I’ve never boosted one of these. Shouldn’t take too much longer.”
“Figure it out! We got company coming!”
“Okay! Just have to . . .” The engine started. Court looked up to see Eddie making the sign of the cross over himself, then kissing his fingertips and touching them to the dashboard of the little car. He put the transmission in gear, looked back to Gentry, and said, “Vamanos.”
The Chinese sedan rolled forward over gravel and rainwater. Eddie turned for the compound’s main gate, doing his best to drive slowly and naturally. Court looked out the back window again. The two soldiers had unslung their rifles. They seemed confused for only a moment. Then both men raised their weapons at the departing sedan.
“Punch it!” shouted Court.
The rear windshield snapped, glass blew into the backseat, and Eddie Gamble stepped on the gas.
They barreled ahead through the rain; the cracks of rifles from overhead told them they were below the twin guard towers just inside the compound’s entrance. Eddie screamed to his passenger to brace himself, and the little four-door smashed through the wood and wire gate, just as more rounds blew out the rest of the rear windshield. A tight corner to the left sent the car skidding on the paved road, but Gamble turned into the slide and righted the vehicle just as its two right-side tires reached the edge of the blacktop.
The sedan and the two American escapees left the prison behind.
ELEVEN
As dusk descended on Mexico’s Pacific coast, dinner was served at several picnic tables lined up in the large backyard of Eddie’s house. On the back driveway an old open-decked twenty-three-foot Boston Whaler rested on blocks. Leaning against the wall near the back gate were a couple of bicycles; fishing rods hung from hooks next to the little garage. These were Eddie’s things, and it felt weird for Gentry to sit here amongst them without his old friend. In Laos Eddie had a set of filthy baby blue pajamas, just like Court. Nothing else. Now that Court was in Eddie’s world, he saw what Eddie enjoyed doing, he saw who Eddie loved, and Gentry could not help but feel like he was encroaching on Eddie’s world.
Court counted thirty-two people at the tables, including the Gamboa family, the families of a few of the other dead GOPES officers, local friends, and several individuals he’d been introduced to who were in charge of the memorial in Puerto Vallarta. The unarmed local cops whom he’d seen earlier watching over the gathering had grown into a force of eight that wandered around the driveway, out in the street in front of the house, and even patrolled the garden around the dinner tables. He didn’t know why they were there, if they thought some sort of trouble was possible, or even what they’d do about it if trouble appeared.