The priest went to the figure lying on the dirty prison cot. “Your name, my son?”
“Ricardo Mellado.”
The priest stared down at him. It was difficult to tell what the man looked like. His face was swollen and raw. His eyes were almost shut. Through thick lips the prisoner said, “I’m glad you were able to come, Father.”
The priest replied, “Your salvation is the Church’s duty, my son.”
“They are going to hang me this morning?”
The priest patted his shoulder gently. “You have been sentenced to die by the garrote.”
Ricardo Mellado stared up at him. “No!”
“I’m sorry. The orders were given by the prime minister himself.”
The priest then placed his hand on the prisoner’s head and intoned: “Dime tus pecados…”
Ricardo Mellado said, “I have sinned greatly in thought, word, and deed, and I repent all my sins with all my heart.”
“Ruego a nuestro Padre celestial para la salvación de tu alma. En el nombre del Padre, del Hijo y del Espiritu Santo…”
The guard listening outside the cell thought to himself: What a stupid waste of time. God will spit in that one’s eye.
The priest was finished. “Adios, my son. May God receive your soul in peace.”
The priest moved over to the cell door and the guard unlocked it, then stepped back, keeping his gun aimed at the prisoner. When the door was locked again, the guard moved to the adjoining cell and opened the door.
“He’s all yours, Father.”
The priest stepped into the second cell. The man inside had also been badly beaten. The priest looked at him a long moment. “What is your name, my son?”
“Felix Cárpio.” He was a husky, bearded man with a fresh, livid scar on his cheek that the beard failed to conceal. “I’m not afraid to die, Father.”
“That is well, my son. In the end none of us is spared.”
As the priest listened to Carpio’s confession, waves of distant sound, at first muffled, then growing louder, began to reverberate through the building. It was the thunder of pounding hooves and the screams of the running mob. The guard listened, startled. The sounds were rapidly moving closer.
“You’d better hurry, Father. Something peculiar is happening outside.”
“I’m finished.”
The guard quickly unlocked the cell door. The priest stepped out into the corridor and the guard locked the door behind him. There was the sound of a loud crash from the front of the prison. The guard turned to peer out the narrow, barred window.
“What the hell was that noise?”
The priest said, “It sounds as though someone wishes an audience with us. May I borrow that?”
“Borrow what?”
“Your weapon, por favor.”
As the priest spoke, he stepped close to the guard. He silently removed the top of the large cross that hung around his neck, revealing a long, wicked-looking stiletto. In one lightning move he plunged the knife into the guard’s chest.
“You see, my son,” he said as he pulled the submachine gun from the dying guard’s hands, “God and I decided that you no longer have need of this weapon. In Nomine Patris,” Jaime Miró said, piously crossing himself.
The guard slumped to the cement floor. Jaime Miró took the keys from the body and swiftly opened the two cell doors. The sounds from the street were getting louder.
“Let’s move,” Jaime commanded.
Ricardo Mellado picked up the machine gun. “You make a damned good priest. You almost convinced me.” He tried to smile with his swollen mouth.
“They really worked you two over, didn’t they? Don’t worry. They’ll pay for it.”
Jaime put his arms around the two men and helped them down the corridor.
“What happened to Zamora?”
“The guards beat him to death. We could hear his screams. They took him off to the infirmary and said he died of a heart attack.”
Ahead of them was a locked iron door.
“Wait here,” Jaime said.
He approached the door and said to the guard on the other side, “I’m finished here.”
The guard unlocked the door. “You’d better hurry, Father. There’s some kind of disturbance going on out—” He never finished his sentence. As Jaime’s knife went into him, blood welled out of the guard’s mouth.