Hours of this, and then finally Minetti struck his cigarette lighter and looked at his watch. “Ten minutes more,” he told us. That ten minutes, somehow, seemed longer than all the hours of waiting which had preceded it. At last it was time. “Now!” Minetti said. We slipped silently from our dark hiding-place to the brightness of the hallway.
This was the most dangerous part. If, by chance, we should be seen now, the jig was up before it even started. It was three a.m., the middle of the night, and the hotel was as silent as a tomb. Uniforms were the standard form of dress here. Clothed as we were, we would be shot on sight. Thus it was our first task to obtain the uniforms we needed as disguises in order to bring off the rescue.
We went directly to the large room used as a barracks by the soldiers stationed to guard the hotel. This room had once been used as a gambling casino. We were in luck. We reached the entrance to it without incident.
Minetti stood guard outside the entrance while Pedro and I slipped inside the darkened room. There was the odor of’ male sweat, the sounds of masculine snoring, the feeling of army barracks around the world. I stationed myself at the door, peering through the dimness, trying to cover Pedro.
He moved like the shadow of a cat, lithe, and very surely. He went directly to the row of lockers against one of the side walls of the room. He moved down to the far end of the line. His fingers trailed expertly over their surfaces until he found the tiny pieces of chewing gum left there by our accomplice on the hotel staff to mark the ones which were to be robbed.
These had been carefully selected with two points in mind. The first was that they were the lockers of men who would not go on duty again until the next morning, men who would not awaken when the pair slated to relieve the guard to Victoria Winters’ prison went on duty at four a.m.--an hour from now—-men who would not miss their uniforms until long after our mission should have been accomplished. The second consideration was that these were men whose approximate height and build corresponded with those of myself and Pedro. Their uniforms must look like they belonged on us.
Finally, his arms loaded with clothing, Pedro started back toward me. A man rose from one of the bunks, stretched and then, half asleep, started walking straight toward Pedro. My finger stiffened on the trigger of the revolver I was holding. The soldier passed within inches of Pedro, reached beyond him and opened a door. A flood of bright light washed over Pedro. Fortunately, the sudden light must have blinded the soldier. He kept going through the door and closed it behind him. Pedro glided over to where I was and as we slipped out of the room we heard the sound of a toilet flushing behind the door the soldier had entered.
Minetti was waiting. He stood guard as Pedro and I changed into the uniforms. We hid our own clothes behind some draperies. Then, with Minetti between us, we marched boldly down the hallway.
Our first obstacle was expected. It was a guard seated at a desk in front of the entrance to a stairway. We halted in front of him with military precision. I let Pedro do the talking while I ostentatiously held a pistol on Minetti.
“An American agent, a CIA spy,” Pedro told the guard in Spanish. “Captain Garcia wants him held here for questioning.”
“Where is the captain?” the guard asked. “Doesn’t he know there is only one cell down there and that it already contains a prisoner? Besides, he is the only one with the key to it.”
“He’ll be along,” Pedro told him. “We are to stand guard until he gets here.”
“I don’t understand,” the guard grumbled. “There are already two guards down there. And besides, the prisoner in the cell is female. It’s not usual to put a male prisoner in with a female one.”
“You’ll have to argue with the captain,” Pedro told him firmly. “I just follow orders. Besides,” he joked, “maybe the captain intends to breed them.”
“Not likely,” the guard joked back. “There’s too many damn Yankees already.” Chuckling at his own meagre humor, he let us pass.
Pedro repeated the same story to the two soldiers who were stationed in the small area at the bottom of the staircase. They were sitting at a little wooden table in front of a stout barred door which could only be the entrance to Vickie’s prison. They accepted what Pedro said, grumbling much as the guard upstairs had.
Now we had to wait until the guard changed. There was a good reason why Minetti had planned it this way. A demolition expert, he wanted to set off just enough of a charge to blast open the lock on the prison door without arousing the guard upstairs or anybody else. It had been impossible for him to tell in advance just how much nitro this would take. He would have to examine the lock, prepare the charge and detonate it now, on the spot. It was conceivable that it might take hours to do it properly. Or it might not. Right now I wished I could read his mind and tell what his judgment was. But as I looked at his eyes, which were riveted to the lock of the door, I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.
Pedro made small talk with the two guards. I confined myself to grunts. One of them commented on this. “Your friend isn’t very sociable,” he told him in Spanish
“It is because he is filled with hate,” Pedro told them. “See how he watches the prisoner. He is just hoping for an excuse to kill him. He hates the Americans with all his soul.”
I tried to look as hateful as I could. I bared my teeth and snarled agreement. I gave Minetti a sharp jab in the belly with the revolver. There was the faintest glint of amusement in his eyes as he stared back at me. I was glad to see it. Minetti was not a man I would have wanted for an enemy.
“You see?” Pedro told the two sentries. “With him on the job, I never worry. A prisoner would have to be mad to try anything.”
They continued talking small talk until the two guards arrived to replace the two who had been on duty. Again Pedro explained the situation. “The Captain should be here shortly,” he added. The first two guards left. Pedro set about establishing a rapport with the pair of replacements.
After a while, he got to the point. “I understand from those other fellows,” Pedro said, “that your prisoner is a very good-looking girl.”
“Si. She is a real English beauty,” he was told.
“Too bad the captain has the key,” Pedro said. “I would enjoy a look at her. I am something of a connoisseur when it comes to women.”
“Who isn’t?” The guard guffawed at his own remark.
“Indeed.” Pedro laughed heartily along with him.
“But I suspect that the two who left were exaggerating her allure.”
“Not at all!” the guard told him indignantly. “She’s a real sexy piece. Many’s the night I wished I had the key to the cell instead of the captain. I might not find out what they want to know, but I’d make her squeal all right.”
“Isn’t it hot inside there?” Pedro asked, indicating the door.
“Probably. It used to be an icebox, but the refrigeration is turned off now. It probably is pretty hot.”
“Maybe she takes off her clothes to relieve the heat.” Pedro leered.
The two guards looked at each other. “I never thought of that,” one of them said, scratching his head.
“Too bad there’s no way of taking a look,” Pedro sighed.
“But there is.” The second guard produced a key and pointed toward the slot at the top of the door.