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I SLEPT FOR ANOTHER hour and woke to a faint noise that sounded like keys rattling in someone’s pocket. I got up and peered into the darkness. The single dim light still flickered by the door to the hallway. The door was wide open. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I saw someone standing by my cell door. The door swung open in an abrupt, fluid motion, and the light above it flickered once. In that brief flash, I saw two things that unsettled me.
First, the man was a short stranger I had never seen before. No uniform, so not a cop. Not one of the rednecks. My first thought had been that maybe they had gotten their cousin deputy to let them in and had come for me in the quiet of the night—small towns were known for that kind of corruption. But the stranger I’d glimpsed was definitely not one of them. He was Hispanic.
The second thing I noticed that stirred me up inside was that at the end of a short arm, in a gloved hand—outstretched and pointed right at me—was what looked like a Heckler & Koch P30 with a suppressor attached to it. Possibly a P30L or LS, but I thought P30L. Not a common gun in this area except among collectors. A good weapon but better when not pointed directly at your gut.
I remained still. I had the chance to dive to the right-hand side, roll, and come at the guy with a fast-right hook. It was dark enough that I had a good chance to make a connection before a novice shooter fired his weapon, but I wasn’t sure how much of a novice this guy was. And there was also the chance that he might fire blind. Even a novice could fire randomly into the dark and hit something, especially in such a confined space. I was fast, but I wasn’t faster than bullets — the distance between where I stood, and the cell door was about eleven or twelve feet. I might be able to make it. Maybe. But I didn’t want to get shot.
Better to wait and learn his intent, then react—unless he fired. At which point, it didn’t matter the odds or the questions that boiled in my head. If he fired a single shot, I’d react. Self-preservation demanded it.
He didn’t fire. Instead, he clicked on a flashlight he held in his left hand, killing my chances of using the dark to my advantage. He shone the light right in my eyes, letting me know immediately he was not a novice. I had made the right decision in refraining from action.
In a thick Mexican accent, he said, “Stand up.”
I stood up.
I asked, “What the hell is this?”
He stayed quiet.
I repeated, “What the hell do you want?”
He tucked the flashlight between his cheek and shoulder like it was a telephone and then reached his left hand toward his center to remove something from around his body. It was something thick and bunched up like he had been holding onto a snake.
He tossed it at my feet.
I looked down as he returned the flashlight to his left hand and pointed the beam at the coiled object on the ground. It was what looked to be about a seven-foot coil of extension cord, orange and bright under the beam from the flashlight.
He said, “Tie it into a noose.”
I didn’t move.
He said, “If you don’t do as I say, I’ll find more people you care about and kill them.”
That was when I knew that I should’ve reacted sooner.