“You’re sure I know?” Kurt said, his tone betraying his contempt. “You’re damned straight I know. I’ve got the vice president of Panama in my living room, for God’s sake. You’d think that might give me an inkling.”
The smile on the diplomat’s face never faded. “Indeed. I guess it’s been a long day for you, as well. Unfortunately, Ambassador Davis will not be able to see you this afternoon as we had hoped. He asked me to meet with you on his behalf and to tell you that we have found several countries that would be more than happy to accept Doctor Esquiveland his family in exile.”
Kurt was stunned. “You think
that’s
what this is about? You think Rod and Jean Esquivel are here to beg for asylum? Jean’s an American citizen for crying out loud. She doesn’t need asylum from anyone.”
Finally, the political advisor’s calm façade showed the first sign of cracking. “But the vice president is not an American citizen. We only assumed—”
“Well, you were wrong,” Kurt said. “In fact, that is the very substanceof my message from the vice president. He wanted Ambassador Davis to know that he will be joining active elements of the opposition against Noriega. He’ll be going underground and continuing the fight for freedom in his homeland.”
The diplomat scowled and cocked her head. Clearly, this was not what she’d been expecting to hear. “Very well, then,” she said. “I’ll pass that along to the ambassador. Thank you so much for coming.”
Kurt accepted the diplomat’s hand and successfully fought off the urge to break it. “On a personal level, I’d appreciate it if you could make sure that President DelValle finds out what Rod is doing so that he can take a quick glimpse of what honor looks like.”
The diplomat didn’t respond and Kurt hadn’t expected her to.
In the ensuing weeks, Rod Esquivel disappeared from view, joining a band of underground patriots whose mission it was to restore Panama to its citizens. While in his self-imposed exile, the deposed vice presidentrecorded several of the radio messages that Kurt would broadcast through La Voz de la Libertad. Over time, he cautiously reappeared in public view, testing the safety of his presence, and finally reestablishinghis medical practice.
For his part, President DelValle was likewise active in the cause of freedom. When Kurt and his coconspirators found themselves short on funds for the apartment leases they needed to hide their transmitters, DelValle forwarded, through an intermediary, the paltry sum of $2,000. Here he was, living in the most opulent exile the world had ever seen, safe with his millions, and he had the audacity to offer a mere two grand.
The exchange of cash happened at night, in the parking lot of a supermarket.When Kurt opened the envelope and counted the bills, he looked up at the messenger and said. “Okay, listen to me, because I want to make sure you get this exactly right. You need to quote me verbatim for President DelValle. Are you ready?”
The messenger nodded.
“Good. Tell him he should be ashamed of himself. It’s his country too.” He slapped the envelope into the messenger’s chest. “I don’t want his money. Give it back to him and tell him to shove it where the sun never shines. And we will never broadcast anything from him again.”
40
Ever since the coup, Modelo Prison had become a warehousefor political prisoners. Gone were many of the rapists, murderers,and common criminals; they’d been shipped off for internment elsewhere. In their places came the dissidents and coup followers—the organizers were mostly dead—sent to this godforsaken hole to await whatever the Pineapple could dream up for them.
Also gone were the guards who had patrolled the corridors and harassedthe prisoners. Their roles had been absorbed by regular PDF soldiers who carried about them an air of military professionalism that their predecessors could never project.
Early one morning, just a few days after the coup, one of these new guards came to Kurt’s cell and peered at him through the bars, presumablyto verify that he had neither escaped nor died during the night. He greeted Kurt cordially and introduced himself as the sergeant in charge of Kurt’s section of the prison. He seemed intent on reassuring his prisoner that there was nothing to be concerned about. “I want you to know,” the sergeant said, “that prison operations will remain unchanged.”
“Thank you,” Kurt said. “I appreciate that.”
With a courteous nod, the sergeant started to leave, and then Kurt was overcome with a sense of unique opportunity. He stepped to the bars and caught the guard’s attention just as he was about to disappear into the officers’ quarters across the hall. “Excuse me, Sergeant?”
The guard turned.
“Don’t forget my coffee,” Kurt said.
The sergeant’s jaw dropped. “What?”
“My coffee,” Kurt said, as nonchalantly as he could manage. “I get coffee every morning. I consider it an important part of my day.”
“Coffee.” The sergeant seemed stunned.
“First thing,” Kurt said. “Thanks so much.” He turned and went about his day.
The next morning, Kurt nearly fell over from shock when the sergeantobediently delivered a yellow-and-black-striped paper cup of Café Duran. Containing his disbelief that the ruse had worked, Kurt accepted the coffee with a polite smile and a nod, and then sipped the nectar of the gods.
Every morning, for the remainder of his captivity, Kurt was served hot coffee by the guard staff.
Outside the walls of Modelo Prison, relations between Panama and the United States were coming unhinged. Noriega had become progressivelymore paranoid since the coup and had decided that the whole effort had been instigated by the American government as a ploy to have him removed from power. In retaliation, he redoubled his harassmentof American troops and civilians and greatly increased his anti-Americanrhetoric.
The Pentagon, the State Department, the CIA, and the White House had finally converged on the same conclusion: Noriega had to go. They’d tried to let the electoral process make the change, but the Pineapplehad quelled democracy with violence. The people of Panama had tried rising in rebellion, and that, too, had been crushed, surprisingly peacefully, with the real violence following in its wake.
For many months, Operation Blue Spoon—a plan for the forcible removal of Manuel Noriega from power—had been in the can, waitingfor somebody to pull the trigger. The mission’s time had come.
And the right man was in command.
41
Jim Ruffer was at the meeting in the Tunnel when GeneralWoerner wept during his announcement that he would be retiring in thirty days. He had never been a supporter of Blue Spoon, having always thought that it would bring more harm than good. Woerner seemed to believe that as a sovereign nation, Panama had a right to the government that its people inflicted on themselves. Whatever we did to interfere, he said, would only make the United States look like meddlers.
He was not the first, nor would he be the last, to express these thoughts, but generals are the enforcers of national policy, not the makers of it, so it surprised few when he was ultimately relieved of command.
In Woerner’s place came General Maxwell “Mad Max” Thurman, who told his senior staffers during the change of command ceremony, “Ladies and gentlemen, from now on the uniform of the day will be battlefield utilities. We are at war. Dismissed.”
American military activity increased dramatically following the change of command. Partly to bring troops into battle-readiness, but also to desensitize the Panamanians to the rhythms and noises of invasion,Thurman ordered regular nighttime mobilization exercises in which tanks, trucks, and aircraft would go through the motions of war, without ever actually firing a shot.
One night, from the window of his cell, Kurt watched in stunned amazement as fighter jets and attack helicopters carried out a full-scale mock bombardment of the PDF Special Forces barracks on Flamenco Island.
The exercises, of course, infuriated Noriega, who saw the saber-rattlingas an act of war. Like so many doomed dictators before him, he made blustering speeches to his people about the blood-letting that would follow any attempt to topple the duly elected government of Panama. Didn’t the world remember what happened to the last American-led coup just months before? Those traitors were still in prison, where they would remain for a long, long time, forever in some cases.
Apparently accustomed to seeing the Americans back down under his rhetorical pressure, Noriega seemed to have difficulty dealing with an American general whose response to his threats was largely one of indifference.
In a move reflective of his growing panic, Noriega officially changed the status of Kurt Muse from that of political prisoner to that of hostage. That was the word he used: Hostage. Furthermore, he announcedto the world that if any attempt was made to topple his government,the first bullet fired in the resistance would be aimed at Kurt’s head.
It was a standing execution order, and to add credence to the threat, Kurt’s patrolling guard was replaced by a stationary one, whose job it was to sit in a chair, all day long, waiting for the order to shoot.
Back at home, in their tiny townhouse in Burke, Virginia, news of the death threat to Kurt felt like a knife in the heart. After hundreds of phone calls and dozens of letters to everyone from the president on down to midlevel staffers who helped put her through to high-level decisionmakers, Annie was beginning to feel helpless.
The extended family had begun to reestablish contact after months of dismal silence, but Kimberly and Erik, while putting up a good front and a good fight, were clearly beginning to sag under the strain of beingso horribly displaced from everything they had come to know as normal. Erik, in particular, was having a hard time, and his difficulties were reflected in his report card.
Annie had pulled every string she could find, and now she found herself hounding those who were cooperating to the point that she feared driving them off. But what else was there to do? She couldn’t stop pushing. Not now. Not on the heels of the coup and the impendingdeath threat to her husband. Kurt needed her to be strong and activenow more than ever before.
It was so easy to feel as if no one was listening. The government apparatus was so huge and so complicated, fraught with so many conflictingpriorities, that she wondered sometimes if it was even reasonableto expect powerful people to pay close attention to one man’s plight.
Then, one day in early November, she found a letter in the mail that reaffirmed her belief in God and the government and in the goodness of people, no matter how lofty their station in life:
The White House
Washington, DC
October 30, 1989
Dear Mrs. Muse:
Your letter of September 13, 1989, and the accompanying letterfrom your husband are poignant reminders of the sacrifice your family has made for democracy in Panama.
We are doing everything we can to bring about an end to this crisis and the release of your husband. I know this is a very difficulttime for all of you.
Your husband is a brave man; his courage and conviction have my respect and admiration. I also recognize the burden you and the rest of your family bear. You, too, have earned my respect and gratitude.
Once this crisis is over and your husband is free, I hope you, and he, and Kimberly will visit the White House so that I can thank you all in person.
God bless all of you.
Sincerely,
George Bush
Annie read the letter over and over, to herself and to her children. Respect. Admiration. Gratitude. These things did matter. They mattered to her, to her children, and to the president of the United States. Kurt
was
a brave man, and it was important that he be recognized as such. But more than that, Annie saw in the letter a subliminal message that she should take heart, have faith that her suffering and that of her family would not go on forever.
“Once this crisis is over and your husband is free ...”
Not “if” this crisis ends, but “once this crisis is over.” That was a sign, wasn’t it? The president of the United States of America isn’t glib or careless in his wording of correspondence. No, he’s precise in all such things, and for her, the message was clear. Kurt’s ordeal would end. Soon.
Visits with Kurt Muse had become Jim Ruffer’s primary responsibility. Before each meeting, he would convene in the Tunnel with Colonel Green—a Delta operator whose name was clearly not Green, and who, for all Ruffer knew, may not even have been a colonel. The man never even wore a uniform. They’d meet for at least ninety minutes before each meeting at Modelo, and then again for at least four hours after the visit was completed. They had Jim drawing pictures and locating equipment with a level of precision that was far and away more demandingthan counting steps from here to there and the other things they had him looking for after the elections.
Last week, they’d been so intent on knowing specifically what kind of lock Kurt’s cell had that he’d raced ahead of the escorting guard just to get a look. It was a stupid thing to do, he realized, not just because it could have gotten him shot but also because it potentially showed their hand, but how the hell else was he supposed to get that kind of information?
In the eight months that Ruffer had been making these treks to Modelo, he’d come to develop a level of respect for Kurt Muse that frankly inspired him. Here was a man who had lost everything, yet despitethe occasional ups and downs, the occasional paranoia and fear, he kept an outlook on life that was first and foremost optimistic. Surroundedby misery and subjected to unspeakable hardship and degradation,Kurt had somehow kept an air of humor about him that Ruffer didn’t know that he could maintain in a similar circumstance.
There was a pervasive innocence about Kurt’s worldview—a profound disbelief that the kind of cruelty he witnessed could actually existin the world—that Jim Ruffer found instructive and refreshing in his own life.
He’d come to look forward to his visits with Kurt, come to see them as visits with an old friend. He prayed that whatever lofty plans the Delta dogs had in store would somehow liberate this fine man from his cell; but after countless trips to this fortress, he honestly didn’t see how it was possible.