Havana
“Let’s go,” the guard barked from the entrance to my cell.
I rubbed a hand over my beard, trying to wake myself. The thing about being kept in a solitary cell with no window was that I’d lost track of time, and not just hours in the day, but days in general.
I’d tried to mark every time they fed me, to delineate the time by what kind of food the guards brought, but I had a suspicion they were changing it up just to fuck with my head.
“Now,” the guard urged.
I stumbled to my feet off the bare mattress of my bunk and followed him out of my cell. Another armed soldier trailed behind as we trudged through hallways and up a flight of stairs.
“What day is it?” I asked.
“Silence.”
Super helpful.
We emerged on the first floor, and I covered my eyes from the blinding sunlight that poured in through the windows.
“Move!” the guard yelled, and I walked forward, my eyes prickling from the assault of brightness.
“Here,” the one in front said, opening a door.
I walked through and was able to drop my hands from my eyes in the dimmer setting.
“Jesus Christ. What the hell have you done to him?” a man with a southern twang asked. I blinked as he came into focus. He was dressed in U.S. Army ACUs with full bird colonel rank on his chest and the name Ward.
“Treated him as any prisoner,” my father answered.
“Have a seat, son,” Colonel Ward said, pulling out a chair.
“He’s my son,” my father growled.
“Sure looks like you treated him like it,” Ward drawled. “I asked for this meeting two weeks ago.”
“I’m under no obligation to let you see this prisoner.” My father shrugged.
“As a Cuban citizen, you’re right. But as a member of the United States Army, you’re dead wrong, and you will relinquish Sergeant Delgado to my custody, or you will risk direct consequences. The United States doesn’t take kindly to foreign governments holding their soldiers.”
I sat up straight, leaning forward. “What’s going on?”
“How familiar are you with the Individual Ready Reserve?”
My mind floundered for an answer. “It’s the four years you’re on standby after you ETS.”
“Bingo,” he said, pointing to me. “Now for you non-Americans, I’ll make it clear. Sergeant Delgado enlisted for three years when he was seventeen—”
“He’s twenty-eight, so your point—”
“I’m talking now,” Colonel Ward interrupted my father.
Guess I’d unknowingly spent a birthday in this hellhole, which meant it was at least August first. Jesus, I’d been here almost four months.
“Now,” Colonel Ward said, turning back to me. “You enlisted at seventeen, served your three years as agreed, and then transferred to Individual Ready Reserve.”
“Right,” I agreed. Pieces clicked. IRR was automatic for anyone serving less than eight years. We were on the hook for eight and could be called back at the pleasure of the president, but it hadn’t been done since Desert Storm in the nineties. It was a piece of paper I’d signed and never given a second thought to.
But my eight years was up when I was twenty-five.
“Turns out, you deferred that time while you got your doctorate, Dr. Delgado,” Colonel Ward said with a smile.
“Deferred.” A spark of hope lit in my chest, and even though I wanted to kill it, the damn thing started to glow brighter and brighter.
“Yes. I’m sorry to inform you that two weeks ago I received a call that you’ve been recalled to the Selected Reserve. Your reserve unit back in L.A. is expecting you.”
A small, incredulous laugh slipped free.
“This is preposterous!” my father railed. “He is a criminal!”
“Accused of what?” Colonel Ward asked. “Kidnapping a willing eighteen-year-old adult and helping her get to the embassy for which she holds citizenship?”
My father’s mouth dropped open and then snapped shut, the muscle of his jaw flexing. “We will not surrender custody.”
The door opened and another Cuban general walked in.
“General Delgado.”
“General Gutierrez.”
Colonel Ward walked over to me and placed a hand on my shoulder. “As of this moment, I have custody of Sergeant Delgado. With all our two countries have gone through to reestablish diplomatic ties, are you really willing to go to war over this? Because I am. I don’t leave U.S. soldiers in enemy territory to be falsely imprisoned, and I have roughly five thousand soldiers about five hundred miles from here.”
My father’s fists slammed into the table, and he hung his head, his massive chest rising and falling rapidly. “No.”
“Of course you may take your soldier, Colonel. Please do so now,” General Gutierrez said with a smile.
“Pleasure meeting you, Generals Delgado and Gutierrez,” Ward said with a nod at each. “Thank you.”
He didn’t need to tell me twice. I jumped out of my seat and followed him as he left the conference room as yelling erupted from behind us.
“Keep walking,” he ordered. “Do not stop for any reason.”
“Yes, sir.”
We walked down the marble-floored hallway with its open arches into the Caribbean weather. Such a beautiful setting for ugliness.
We met up with a small group of armed U.S. soldiers, and I was led to a Humvee, which I immediately slid into. I sank into the seat as Ward took the front passenger seat.
“Is this really happening?” I asked, fully expecting to wake up in that solitary cell at any moment.
“It is. How are you? Hungry? Thirsty?” he asked as the convoy pulled out of the headquarters building.
“Yes to all,” I said, my head hitting the seat behind me. I was really leaving, escaping, heading home. Penelope.
“Good. We’ll need to debrief you, of course, and then we’ll get you headed back to the States.”
“Yes, sir. How did you know about me?” I asked.
“You have a hell of an insistent girlfriend, Sergeant.”
That hope in my chest blew into a full-blown fire. I’d be back in L.A. soon. I could hold her, kiss her, fight with her until we had the best make-up sex of our lives, and then start all over again. “There’s no one like her on the planet, sir.”
“Doesn’t take no for an answer, either.”
I smiled—the first real one since I’d been taken away from her at the Embassy. “Yeah, well, there’s a reason they call her Rebel.”
