The silver mines were rough passages cut deep into the heart of a mountain, with tiny cells hacked into dank corridors off the main artery. Rickety wooden frames were built into the sides, clinging like vines to the rock walls that rose a hundred feet high.

It was Steve’s worst nightmare come true, an endless litany of labor and wretched conditions. Before, when he had been sent to the mines by Devereaux, he had resisted the guards’ attempts to force him to work. This time, he was a model laborer, blending seamlessly into the anonymous file of men.

But he waited.

The right time would present itself, and he would grab it. Then he’d be free again.

The man who had befriended him upon his arrival was manacled to him, their leg shackles tearing flesh but not their fierce desire to escape.

“When you go,” he said softly one day, waiting until the armed guard had passed them, “take me with you.”

Steve slid him a wary glance. “What makes you think I intend to escape?”

“You have that look about you. But you, I think, are much smarter than the others who have tried and failed.”

Juan Rodriguez was a political prisoner, a man who had spoken out too boldly and found himself arrested and sentenced to twenty years hard labor.

“I miss my family most,” he said bitterly. “My wife was pregnant when I was arrested. I do not even know if I have a son or a daughter. Or a wife any longer.”

Steve thought of Ginny, and he thought of their children. What would happen if he didn’t manage to escape? But Ginny must be looking for him; she was resourceful. She would find him, or at least go to his grandfather.

Ah, Christ, I hope she doesn’t think I have just gone off on business for Bishop again! Where the devil is Paco?

He was supposed to have met him there in that tiny cantina, but all hell had broken loose when the soldiers had come in “looking for escaped rebel prisoners,” though the men they had taken were only honest civilians.

It was war. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time could get a man killed if he wasn’t careful.

Or earn him freedom if he was bold enough to take a chance….

Steve had been in this exact same situation before. He’d seized his chance then, and he would do it again. This time, at least, there was no doctor with unnatural desires to drive him to the brink of surrender. No, this time he knew how to survive what must be tolerated, and just wait for his chance. It would come. Sooner or later, it would come.