The stockade at the Santiago del Pisco Air Force Base was located near the northernmost part of the installation and occupied a parcel of land about five hundred yards square. It was surrounded by barbed wire, guard towers and patrols of vicious Doberman pinschers. Within its boundaries were barracks, an exercise yard, administration buildings and the notorious solitary confinement cells.
These cells were in long narrow buildings set on pedestals four feet off the ground. The most dangerous people in Halvados were locked in these cells and were slowly starved to death.
It was to these cells that Butler was marched by three soldiers with their submachine guns pointed at his back. It was ten o’clock in the morning and the sun was a huge molten ball in the sky. A group of prisoners were milling about in the exercise yard, and screams could be heard coming from the direction of the administration buildings, where interrogations were held.
Butler wore his blue suit and had some bruises on his face from the scuffle that ensued when he’d tried to escape from the meeting room. A platoon of guards had beaten him to the ground and taken away his Walther, his cigarettes and his book of matches from the Hilton Hotel. However they had neglected to take away his fountain pen, unaware that it was a deadly laser gun, and this would prove to be a serious mistake. His hands were cuffed behind his back.
The soldiers marched Butler up the stairs of one of the solitary confinement buildings and pushed him into the orderly room, where a group of enlisted men sat around smoking and joking. A sergeant sat behind the desk, and there was a rack of rifles in the corner.
“Who’s this bird?” asked the sergeant behind the desk, who shaved his head every morning.
“A traitor.”
“What’s his name?”
“Butler.”
The sergeant behind the desk signed a receipt for Butler and gave it to the soldiers who’d delivered him to the stockade. The soldiers took their handcuffs and departed.
“Lock him up,” said the sergeant.
Two of the guards took out their pistols and ordered Butler to stand by the door. Another guard unlocked the door, and Butler saw a long dark corridor lined with iron bars.
One of the guards kicked Butler in the ass. “Get moving!”
Butler wanted to turn around and waste him, but the odds were too heavily on the side of the guards. So he stepped down the long dark corridor that smelled of terrible putrefaction. In the shadows he saw hands clasping the iron bars, and the outlines of bodies. His eyes adjusted to the dark and he saw that there were no windows at all back here. The only light came from little cracks in the ceiling and walls, for the building had been hastily constructed by men who weren’t very good carpenters.
“Stop right here!” one of the guards said.
Butler stopped, and the guards unlocked the door to a ceil. They opened the door and heaved Butler inside. Butler flew forward, tripped over somebody’s leg, hit the far wall, and dropped to the floor. The guards laughed as they locked the door and walked away.
Butler felt like vomiting from the stink in the place. He blinked his eyes and could make out two figures in the cell with him. His mind buzzed with the thought that the world was on the brink of nuclear holocaust, and only he could alert the Bancroft Research Institute.
“Who are you?” asked one of the figures in a voice that sounded familiar to Butler.
“My name’s Butler, and I’m an American citizen”
“Butler!” the man shouted in astonishment. This time Butler recognized the voice as belonging to Putney Wilson, the former CIA chief of station in Halvados.
“Hiya, Wilson,” Butler said cheerily. “Fancy meeting you here. Who’s our other cellmate?”
The third figure cleared his throat. “I am Juan Malpelo, the former president of the Republic of Halvados.”
“My, my, my,” Butler said. “Politics certainly makes strange cellmates.”
Wilson grabbed Butler by his shoulders. “They can’t do this to us!”
“It looks like they have,” Butler replied calmly. “Say, what stinks in here?”
“There are no toilets,” Wilson said. “If you’ve got to go, you go in that corner there. Once a month we get to shovel it all out.”
Malpelo growled. “It’s simply disgusting in here.”
“May I point out,” Wilson said, “that this stockade was constructed during your second administration.”
“It was?”
“Yes it was.”
“I didn’t know anything about it.”
“Sure you didn’t.”
“I didn’t.”
“Liar!”
“Gringo!”
“Fascist!”
“Faggot!”
“C’mon,” Butler said. “Let’s not argue. Things are bad enough here as it is without having to listen to you two assholes.”
Wilson moved closer to Butler. “What’s going on out there?”
“You wouldn’t believe it. Noble is about to plunge the world into nuclear war. He’s leaving for the States today to make the arrangements.”
“Nuclear war?” Wilson asked. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Noble is going to get an atom bomb and drop it on the Sierra Chorino Mountains. If the Russians and Chinese protest, as they most certainly will, the United States will hurl its entire nuclear arsenal at them and bomb them back to the Stone Age.”
“Oh come on, Butler. Noble is only an American businessman. He doesn’t have that much power.”
“Think about it,” Butler replied. “The military and the CIA will be overjoyed at having the opportunity to attack Prussia and China, and the businessmen will pick up the pieces afterward and sell them at inflated prices.”
Malpelo held his head in his hands. “My poor country is going to disappear,” he wailed.
“Probably,” Butler agreed.
“But what can we do?” Wilson asked.
“We’re going to break out of here,” Butler said. He took out his fountain pen that disguised his laser gun. “With this.”
“They let you keep it?”
Malpelo squinted at the fountain pen. “Why shouldn’t they let him keep his pen? We are not a nation of barbarians, after all.”
Butler waved his pen in the air. “But the pen is mightier than the sword,” he said with a smile.