Spy in a Little Black Dress - By Maxine Kenneth Page 0,100
in front of her to fully protect her body. Then, heart pounding loudly in her chest, she held her breath and waited for whatever was to happen next.
There was a semiloud explosive sound, followed by a concussive burst of air and a grating noise as something was propelled across the cell. There was also the sudden eye-watering tang of cordite in the air. Jackie had noted that smell before, after the demolition of the rock shelf above the roadway in the Escambray Mountains. Smoke began to fill the room, and all of a sudden someone was there moving the mattress aside—Emiliano. Jackie had never been so glad to see anyone in her life. She was instantly reminded of Jacques rescuing her from the top of Notre Dame. She was lucky that when danger threatened, there always seemed to be a heroic and resourceful man waiting in the wings to come to her rescue.
“Jacqueline, are you all right?”
Jackie was so overcome with emotion that all she could do was nod.
“Then let’s get out of here.”
Shoving away the mattress, Emiliano helped Jackie to her feet. An explosive charge had blown the heavy cell door off its hinges, and it now lay twisted on the opposite side of the cell.
Emiliano led Jackie out and said, “Good thing I still had some of those dynamite sticks you took from El Teatro de Cinema. I used the last one on the cell door.”
Jackie was happy that she had had the foresight to purchase a camera bag capacious enough to hold such nonphotographic items as a reel of film and a bundle of dynamite sticks.
As they rushed outside, Jackie said, “So that’s what caused those explosive sounds I heard?”
“Yes, we lobbed the other ones over the walls one at a time. Made Sanchez think that he was under attack by overwhelming forces. Must have thought it was an artillery barrage. Coward that he is, he hightailed it out of here, along with the sisters Death and Night.” Jackie smiled to hear Emiliano use the same term of reference as she did for the colonel’s henchwomen.
Now they were back on the parade ground. Sanchez and his agents were gone, along with their truck. But there was Gabriela, a big smile on her face, and her fellow former prisoners. They looked like an impromptu vagabond army. Jackie saw that the prisoners were all armed with cestas, the wicker baskets jai alai players used to hurl the pelota around the court. Of course, what better way to loft those dynamite sticks over the twelve-foot walls of this fortification. She once again admired Emiliano’s ability to improvise a solution to a seemingly impenetrable problem.
“What did you do,” Jackie asked, “hold up a jai alai fronton?”
Emiliano smiled. “Gabriela and I took off in the jeep to get help and found a closed one not too far from here. So we broke in, took the cestas, and I called your embassy and asked for help.”
“I didn’t know you knew how to play jai alai. Wait, let me guess. You played it semiprofessionally during college?”
Emiliano looked like a little boy caught with his proverbial hand in the cookie jar, but it was Gabriela who stepped in and said, “Who do you think it was taught me to throw the pelota?”
Jackie went over to Gabriela and took one hand in both of hers, “Thank you for saving my life again.”
“For what you did, for the sacrifice you made, I will be forever grateful.”
Emiliano stepped in with an explanation. “We didn’t get very far when Gabriela and I decided that we couldn’t leave you with the colonel. So we made plans to rescue you. I remembered we still had that dynamite back in the jeep. We were lucky that the colonel never noticed the jeep parked on the far side of the cemetery. Otherwise, none of this would have worked. Now we better hurry. I have arranged your escort back to the U.S.”
“When?”
“Now.”
Jackie looked incredulous. “Now?”
“Yes. And we better get started or you’re going to miss the boat—literally.”
While the other former prisoners remained behind in the fort, Emiliano and Gabriela walked Jackie past the cemetery and down to the pirate inlet, stopping off at the jeep first so Jackie could retrieve her camera bag. They walked down to the beach, now bathed bright by the rising Caribbean moon, and waited for whoever was supposed to come take Jackie home.
As they stood there, Jackie noticed something reflecting in the moonlight