Page 4 of The Hero
Which wasn’t good.
The plan that Willis had put into motion was risky at best, doomed to fail at worst, and Bob hated that he hadn’t been able to talk to Marlowe today. Notreallytalk. He shook his head at his lame attempt at warning her with that stupid Forrest Gump reference. There was no way she’d understood. But he couldn’t exactly come right out and say that when the shit hit the fan, she needed to run. Far and fast.
The plan had a few things going for it. The small number of guards, the age of the prison, the overcrowding. But the trustees might be a problem.
For the first time since he’d started doing these rescue missions, Bob wished his team was there to have his back. But Chappy, Cal, and JJ had no idea he was here, or even out of the US. They thought he was in Washington State visiting his sick aunt. A sick aunt who didn’t exist.
He hated lying to them, but all three had settled into life in Maine without any issues. They were content to run their tree business and live a calm, quiet life.
Most of the time, Bob enjoyed it too. But he occasionally got restless. Needed the adrenaline rush that came with helping others get out of dangerous situations. Which was how and why he’d agreed to work for Gregory Willis.
Bob had completed a dozen or so missions in the last few years. He’d had no issues working alone before, in more dangerous situations than this one. So what was different now?
Deep down, Bob knew what it was.
Marlowe.
The look in her eyes had unsettled him. Desperation. Fear. Barely a hint of hope.
From what he’d read in the report detailing her brother’s attempts to get the US government involved in the case, there was little chance the yaba pills found in her belongings were actually hers. An anonymous tip was called in, and it had resulted in Marlowe being hauled off her dig site and flung into a cell, with the key basically thrown away.
Determination rose within Bob. He wasn’t leaving Thailand without her. It wouldn’t be easy, even with the underground network of people Willis had arranged to shuttle them from hiding spot to hiding spot. Bangkok wasn’t too far from the Cambodian border. If they could make it, they had a good chance of getting back to the States.
But getting to the border would be ... a challenge.
Before he could even think that far, he first needed to get her out from behind the prison walls. There was a real risk she’d be hurt in the process, or he’d be caught and thrown into the Bangkok Hilton, as the Bang Kwang Central men’s prison was often called. A prison break of this size and scope had never been attempted, and as crazy as the plan sounded when Bob had first heard it, after being inside today, he realized it actually had a mild chance of succeeding.
Still, all the things that could go wrong swam in his head, and Bob ruthlessly pushed them back. He needed to stay positive. As soon as the walls were breached, chaos would erupt, and all he had to do was find Marlowe and slip away undetected.
He snorted. Yeah, right.Allhe had to do. The prison had thousands of inmates. All of them wore the same clothes, and Marlowe had the same black hair and short height as most of them. Yes, she was American, which would help him find her once the plan was put into motion, but it was still going to be a difficult mission.
Despite that, he had every intention of succeeding. Hell, a few years ago, he wasn’t sure he and his friends would be rescued when they’dbeen held as POWs. The chances were even lower then, and they’d made it out. He had to believe he’d be successful now.
“Hang in there, Marlowe,” Bob whispered as he stared at the top of the prison walls. “Just a little longer.”
Marlowe lay in the stuffy room and stared up at the ceiling. The lights in the sleeping room were never shut off. It was as bright in there now as it was during the day, when sunlight streamed in from the dirty windows high above their heads.
The sounds of sleeping women were all around her. Some snored, others cried out when they had bad dreams, and others still mumbled under their breaths. Marlowe hadn’t slept well since the day she’d arrived. It was impossible. The “bed” was uncomfortable, she was always hot and sweaty, and she didn’t like being so crowded. She almost preferred the darkness of solitary. Almost.
The thought of spending the rest of her life here was ... unimaginable. Tears threatened, but she squeezed her eyes shut and refused to let them fall. Crying wouldn’t do a damn thing except make her even more miserable than she was right this moment. And she was already miserable enough to—
An extremely loud noise echoed through the room, interrupting her thoughts.
Marlowe sat up, as did most of the women around her. A low murmur began as everyone tried to figure out what the noise could have been, where it was coming from. One of the trustees lying near the door stood up and opened it, peering outside.
She gasped and said something in Thai under her breath.
Everyone was frozen in place for a moment, clearly surprised by whatever the trustee had uttered—until one of the prisoners near the door shouted something.
Marlowe had no idea what, but suddenly everyone was jumping to their feet and rushing toward the doors.
The three trustees were angrily trying to get the women to step back, to stay away from the doors, but with one hundred prisoners to their three, it was pointless. Marlowe was swept along with the crowd as everyone around her rushed to get out of the small building.
The second she was outside, she understood why everyone was in such a damn hurry.
A large truck had driven straight through the nearby east wall of the prison, leaving a massive hole in the brick.
Debris was scattered all over the yard—bricks, barbed wire, parts of the truck itself.
