Read Six Minutes To Freedom Online
Authors: John Gilstrap,Kurt Muse
Six Minutes To Freedom (28 page)
42
7 Oct 89
Dear Anne, Kimberly and Erik
Thank you so much for your wonderful cards to me. You are so thoughtful. I feel now that it should have been me that wrote to you. After all, I have visited with Kurt so frequently and truly have some marvelous impressions of him that could have been shared with you over the months. Because he is so special, I believe that I have received much more than I have given: To be with Kurt is to receive! He too is very thoughtful and once he stopped me at the end of a visit and apologized so solemnly for not having thanked me at an earlier visit for having brought him something. Under the circumstances, I didn’t even think of being thanked. Kurt is very thoughtful of those around him. I have come to love the man and our visits are a big part of my life. But I have never mentioned it to him. A lot about our relationship goes unsaid. It is kind of extraordinary.When I am with Kurt, Marcos and usually a prison guard or medic are always there. Kurt and I act somewhat formal. I have tried to preserve the formality so that the whole event has a down-to-business officialism about it. My hope, each visit, is to be with him, cheer him and remind him of the real world that we both know—the physical exam just being a medium for the contactthat I felt I must protect.
Kurt is a wonderful fellow. He has a beautiful sense of humor that is at no one’s expense. He seems happy to me though I know that to some extent he tries extra hard to seem well to please us. He also can be very honest and open about his feelings. This is good too and keeps him emotionally healthy.
Marcos Ostrander has a great respect for Kurt and an extreme sense of devotion to his welfare. Kurt couldn’t have had a better man than Marcos. I’ve never been there when the two of them talk. I try to engage Dominguez and the others in conversation to lengthen the time of their visitation. Once I put Dominguez to sleep right in his chair while I rambled on and on about English history and poisonous spiders. Another time I talked so well that Marcos and Kurt must have gotten tired of waiting and came back in to break it up. By the way, when I get back to my office I write up the entire visit in as much detail as I can remember. I’ll turn these over to Kurt when we finally all go home together—soon I hope.
Well, I had better end this letter here. But I have enjoyed writingthese things to you immensely. Kurt speaks so highly of you, Anne. He is certainly your greatest admirer. He is very, very proud of you. And, I might say, that you can all be very proud of him. He is a true and brave man. I have the greatest respect and admiration for him. And because all aspects of life can be a blessingfor us, you will get him back better than ever because he has chosen to make it that way.
God bless you all. I send you the heartfelt love and respect from the Ruffers.
Sincerely,
Jim Ruffer
43
Kurt knew this would be the day he would die.
It was late in the morning, one day in November when something had clearly gone terribly wrong. The corridors of Modelo Prison reverberatedwith the sound of booted feet, not running, exactly, but movingquickly, the staccato beat of foot falls punctuated by shouted orders and the distinctive
clack
of weapons being charged and the unmistakablerattle of belted ammunition.
clack
of weapons being charged and the unmistakablerattle of belted ammunition.
The first bullet fired will be aimed at the head of Kurt Muse ...
Kurt jumped to his feet and put on his shoes; this was part of a ritualhe’d practiced more than a few times, whenever he sensed that the goons were coming to harass him or toss his cell. In this environment, shoes were essential. Without them, he felt one tick too vulnerable, one inch too far from the possibility of making a break if the occasion arose. Watching those poor souls in the prison yard, roaming in rags that left them nearly naked, he realized that clothes were an issue of dignity as well as practicality. Thus, another of his rules was to never be naked in the presence of the guards. The fact of his tiny bathroom, located at a right angle to the rest of his cell, made a certain degree of modesty possible, and Kurt capitalized on it by taking his showers only at night. He kept his clothes as clean as possible by washing them regularlyin the shower, and he hung them to dry by pressing bunches of the garments through the expanded metal grates that served as bars on his windows to the prison yard.
In recent weeks, since the aborted coup, they’d been rotating him between this cell on the third floor and a nearly identical one on the fourth. He didn’t understand the logic, and never bothered to ask, but he figured it had something to do with either messing with his head, or with confounding any rescue attempt that might be mounted by the U.S. government. The reality probably lay somewhere in the middle of those options, though to Kurt the notion of an organized rescue was absurd at both the political level and the practical one. This was a fortress, for God’s sake. No one could possibly lead a breakout withoutkilling huge numbers of people.
For Kurt, that meant that he had to make his own escape opportunities.In his wildest daydreams, he fantasized about grabbing one of the guards’ M-16s and shooting his way out of the building, but as intriguingas that was, the fantasy always ended with the inevitability of Kurt’s bullet-riddled body dropping like a sack about three feet beyond the first door.
More recently, just before the coup and Lieutenant Dominguez’s removalfrom duty, he had devised a plan that he thought might actually have worked: a good old-fashioned bribe. Dominguez frequently complainedabout how woefully small his pension would be following his retirement in a few years. Kurt figured that $20,000 in cash would be enough to convince Dominguez to look the other way one night while Kurt walked out the front door to a waiting car. There might have to be some pretense to make the plan workable, but Kurt was certain that Marcos Ostrander would be more than capable of stitching something like that together. It was a high-risk plan, no doubt, but if the alternativewas a lifetime of confinement in a concrete cage, then a little risk would be just fine with him.
He’d been on the edge of suggesting the plan to Ostrander when the coup went down and Dominguez went away. It would take months to cultivate with these regular army types the kind of friendly relationship he’d developed with Dominguez. Lesson learned: think less, act faster.
On this morning, as the prison teemed with heavily armed soldiers, Kurt sensed that something unique and terrifying was in progress. Clearly, they were expecting the impossible, some kind of storming of the prison. Kurt felt his heart beginning to race. If that was the plan, then someone was botching the hell out of the element of surprise.
He watched in stunned horror as a PDF soldier set up a 5.56mm SAW—Squad Automatic Weapon—mounted on a bipod. The weapon required the gunner to sit on the floor and was fed by a side-mounted box of linked ammunition. The gunner set up his weapon directly in front of Kurt’s cell, a spot from which he could protect the entire hallwaywith a fusillade of withering fire. Or, by simply pivoting the weapon, he could shred Kurt Muse with a single short burst.
Kurt didn’t know how, and he didn’t understand why, but in an instanthe convinced himself that these were his final moments on the planet. He started to sweat profusely as his heart rate tripled. In moments,his T-shirt was soaked with flop sweat. He was
shaking
for God’s sake, uncontrollable quivers in his hands and legs, his whole body quaking in a way he had never experienced. So, this was what abject terror felt like. This was what panic was all about.
shaking
for God’s sake, uncontrollable quivers in his hands and legs, his whole body quaking in a way he had never experienced. So, this was what abject terror felt like. This was what panic was all about.
The crash dive in his emotions happened with frightening speed, overcoming him in seconds, and even as he told himself that he had to calm down, his body refused to cooperate.
It didn’t help at all that the soldier in the corridor was so thoroughlyenjoying his terror. The soldier watched Kurt’s meltdown with a smug smile, ostentatiously fingering the cartridges in the box. “These are for you, no?” the man said in fractured English.
Those are for me, yes, Kurt thought.
His mind reacted to the panic by instantly jumping to places he didn’t want to go. He thought yet again of the anxiety and the hardshiphe’d brought down on his family. He thought of his children and of Annie, his wonderful, beautiful Annie, and of the terrible grief and anger she would feel when he was gone. He thought of the apology he would never have the chance to utter to his father and mother.
He thought with crushing bitterness of the fact that the Pineapple had won. He would have the body of an “American spy” to drag in front of the cameras as a warning to any others who tried to rise against him.
Then he thought of the Kingdom of Heaven, of the reward that he prayed awaited him on the other side of this life. They say there are no atheists in foxholes, and Kurt figured there had to be an impending executioncorollary. His faith had never come close to the relationship that Annie enjoyed with her Creator, but in that moment it occurred to Kurt with perfect clarity that death was not an event to be feared. Rather, it was the necessary next step in life, and as such it should be embraced as the natural order of things. God would not have put him here in this spot if this were not the spot where he belonged.
The realization brought a sense of peace and relief almost instantly. In the clarity of that moment, he felt angry with himself for having given the guard in the hallway such a show. For Noriega and his henchmen,people responsible for so many murders over the years, the sense of victory would not come so much from the fact of his death, but from the stories of his panic and emotional meltdown. The very thought of being the subject of that conversation pissed Kurt off.
Okay, he thought, that show is over. Right by-God now. If they have to shoot me, let the bullets fly. Just please, God, give me the strength to stand tall when it starts.
Before those shots were fired, however, he had one last detail to take care of. He lifted his Bible from where he’d left it next to his cot and retreated into his bathroom. There he jotted his good-bye to his family on the onion skin paper. Just a quick note, “Annie, Erik, Kimberly,I love you so much. I will miss you terribly. Love, Dad.”
That done, he tore the page out of the Bible, folded it into the tiniestpossible ball, and stuffed it deeply into the seam of his pants pocket. When the Americans took custody of his body, they would search his clothing carefully, and he hoped they would find the note and deliverit.
That done, he returned to his cot and lay down. Kurt watched the guard watching him for a while, and then he fell asleep.
When he awoke, the crisis had apparently passed, and the guard was gone.
44
Dear Kurt,
There are so many things that happen that I wish I could rememberto tell you.
Like: The many nights I sit up with Kimberly talking about how wonderful you are. She wants to marry someone just like you. Then we spend some time talking about your qualities.We’ve decided that you have no bad points. Tonight she said what’s that saying about being away from each other and love. I said, absence makes the heart grow fonder. “Yes it does.”
We spend hours talking about our hopes, our doubts. We supportone another.
Another beautiful thing is that K & E are getting along so beautifully. K talks to E, compliments his clothes, his sense of humor.She’s so thankful that he’s not obnoxious, in love with himselfor insensitive. Erik is such a gentle soul. Last Fri. K & E played electronic Battleship. They also spent 2 hours talking to one another & looking at old pictures. There’s a growing bond between them.
We spend so much of our time talking about you. We’ve started the Advent wreath. We say our prayer before dinner, eat and then light a candle and read the reading for the day. I’ve always wanted to spend some of our time in prayer and we are.
I adore you,
Annie
Annie sat quietly at the dining room table—her command center in Burke, Virginia—as Father Frank sipped his coffee and ticked off one element of bad news after another. Intellectually, she understood how grateful she should be for Father Frank’s unflinching candor in his presentation of the facts and in his faithful relaying of information from, to, for, and about Kurt, but on an emotional level, a part of her craved some sliver of happy news, even if it was a lie.
She knew now, through Marcos Ostrander, of the machine gun in the corridor and of Kurt’s epiphanal acceptance of his impending death, just as she knew that the encouragement and sense of hope that had been triggered by President Bush’s letter was short lived, replaced by endless weeks of more of the same. Now that the holidays were approaching,it was hard to fight off the crushing sense of sadness, the thought that one day she might have to face the reality of a future without Kurt. The thought was too much to bear, and she forced it out of her mind. Again.
When Father Frank was done with this latest update, the two of them sat in silence, sipping their coffee. This was Annie’s opportunity to say something; to make a speech, to vent her frustration, or to ask a series of questions, all of which she had done uncountable times in the past. Today, though, she felt as though she had nothing left.
“I’m sorry that the news isn’t better,” Father Frank said.
Annie shrugged, hoping it was a gesture of bravery, not resignation. “The news is what it is.”
Father Frank shifted in his chair and cleared his throat, seeming suddenly uncomfortable. “There is one thing we haven’t yet tried,” he said. “We at the Agency think that the approach of Christmas gives us a unique opportunity for a personal appeal.”
Annie scowled. “What kind of personal appeal?”
“One directly from you to General Noriega.”
“Absolutely not.”
Father Frank raised his palm in rhetorical defense. “Don’t be so fast. Think this through, and keep your eye on the ultimate goal here, which is to get Kurt out of prison. Politically, things haven’t been goingso well for Noriega. The whole world is beginning to see him as a bully, and even he knows how difficult it is to counter that kind of press while you’re still trying to run a dictatorship. If you made a personalappeal for Kurt’s release, it would give him the opportunity to do something genuinely good during the Christmas season. It’s great PR for him, and you get your husband back. It could be a win for everyone.”
Annie was stunned. “What does Marcos think about this?”
“He agrees that it could work.”
“Does he agree with it as a plan?”
“He agrees that it could work.” She recognized spook-speak for, “You’ll have to ask him yourself.” If there was anyone on the planet who hated the Pineapple more than she, it was Marcos Ostrander; for him to even obliquely oblige a public relations coup for Noriega must mean that the options were dwindling to nothing. “How would it work?” Annie asked. “What would I do?”
Father Frank explained the strategy in a way that made it sound like nothing at all. “You’d write a letter to Noriega. You’d describe your life as a single mother, and how important Kurt is in not only your life but in the lives of Kimberly and Erik. You’d say that you know that he is a father as well, and that surely he must understand the difficulty of this kind of separation during the holidays, and you’d appeal for his mercy.”
Annie stared, her mouth dry. “He would make that letter public.”
Father Frank nodded. “Undoubtedly.”
The very thought of groveling at the feet of the Pineapple made her stomach churn. But wasn’t that a better alternative to letting Kurt continueto rot in prison? Didn’t she owe him and her children—heck, didn’t she owe
herself
—at least that much of an opportunity?
herself
—at least that much of an opportunity?
“And you think it will work.”
“We all think so. Fact is, Noriega desperately needs some good press right now, and we think this is a unique opportunity.”
Annie still couldn’t quite wrap her arms around the concept. “What does Kurt think about the idea?”
“No one has mentioned it to him yet. Marcos wanted to get your reaction before mentioning it to him.” They’d already established that Marcos’s plans to attend this particular meeting had been superseded by conflicting events.
She called Marcos on the telephone. “What do
you
think?”
you
think?”
Marcos took a moment to answer, clearing his throat first. “He’s not my husband, and I’m not in jail. I don’t get a vote.”
Images flooded Annie’s mind of a reunion with Kurt. She saw him walking through the door, saw him at the Christmas tree, watching the kids open presents. She felt his warmth pressed against her, smelled his aftershave, heard his laugh. It was everything she’d dreamed of, everythingshe’d been fighting for all these months. And she could make it all happen by writing one letter?
So what if she had to grovel? So what if she gave the Pineapple the bragging rights that he’d prevailed in the battle? Kurt’s battle.
Sure, they were all in it together, but it was Kurt who led the team to cobble the Voice of Liberty out of the ether, and it was he alone who was paying the price. He needed a say in what the price of freedom would be.
“I’ll do it,” Annie said, “but only if Kurt says it’s all right.”
“No.” Kurt’s answer came quickly and emphatically. And, frankly, a little too loudly.
Marcos shot a quick look over his shoulder, but saw that Jim Rufferstill had the guard distracted by some mind-numbing discussion of anatomy or politics. He leaned in closer. “Keep your voice down,” he admonished, “and think for a second before you reject it out of hand. This has a real chance of working.”
“I don’t care,” Kurt hissed. “I am not sucking up to that asshole just to get out of here. I’ll stay here for fifty more years before I give him that kind of satisfaction.”
Marcos squirmed a little in his seat. “Well, technically, you wouldn’t be the one sucking up.”
Kurt shook his head. “I’m the one in prison, I’m the one who would be released.”
“Annie won’t write anything without your permission.”
“Okay, then. She doesn’t have it.”
Marcos sighed, trying to find another angle. “I just wish—”
“We’re not discussing this anymore, Marcos.”
Ostrander stared at Kurt for a long moment, and Kurt stared right back. All the arguments were on the table, and all of them had been killed as quickly as they’d been posed. With nothing more to be said, it was time for this meeting to end. Marcos rose from his seat, and Kurt stood with him. As they shook hands, a tiny smile blossomed on Marcos’s face and he winked.
He could see that the expression confused Kurt, but that was all right. Marcos knew what Kurt never could: that the Muse family had just taken a test and they’d passed with flying colors.
An hour from now, Marcos would sit with Colonel Green in the Tunnel and report the results verbatim. Clearly, Kurt Muse had the emotional stability and the willful commitment to carry out his end of what was coming his way.
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