Anna’s Ordeal
Part 1
Anna Mateus had every reason to celebrate that night. Her brother Jose had shot and seriously wounded a soldier in the junta’s elite guard. He had given the secret police the slip, and was well on his way to a hideout. Anna was in a nightclub. She had danced with at least four boys, and was halfway intoxicated from the tequila. She could not contain her delight, but the drink had made her drop her guard, and she made the grave mistake of boasting of her brother’s escape, Unknown to her a seedy informer had heard her indiscretion, and telephoned the information to Captain Umbreo of the Juntas secret police. In the small hours of the morning, the tall willowy 17year old Anna Mateus, left the tiny cellar bar. She walked alone the familiar short route home, through the back streets to her father’s house. Little did she know that in the next few hours, she was to be arrested, thrown into a police cell and subjected to a most intimate and excruciating torture.
Captain Umbreo of the junta’s henchmen sat behind his desk. He was answering a call from an agent in a bar. The sister of a wanted rebel student had been overheard boasting of her brother’s evasion, and escape .Umbreo knew the club in question. He recorded a detailed description of the girl, and lost no time sending a squad of men to abduct her. Anna Mateus was to be arrested, unharmed, then brought in to be clinically electro tortured to extract information on the safe house.
Anna saw the jeep a block away, but they had been tailing her. The vehicle screeched to a stop 10 yards in front. Anna made a run for it. She was a good runner, but her chunky boots and, close fitting jeans encumbered her. Soon she was overpowered by a burly woman guard, and herded at gunpoint to the jeep. Instructed not to take beat the prisoner up, the squad quickly searched Anna, then bundled her into the jeep and drove her to a secret interrogation center, some miles out in the jungle. Anna lay blindfolded on the floor in the back of the jeep, her heart racing with abject terror at the awful realization of what they could do to her.
The jeep entered a small fenced compound, surrounding an old Spanish Colonial building. It drew to a halt at an open door. Anna was pulled out and hustled down a flight of steps into a small, dark cell. A guard laughed and shouted “Someone will come for you, maybe very soon”, and then the door was locked on her. In the corner of her cell was a crude lavatory and a bowl of water. She could at least clean up. Unable to sleep, she lay on the hard wooden slatted cot trying desperately to close her mind to the fearful imaginings of what they might do to her. She clung to the hope that they might go easy on her .The cell was cold and damp, and she lay curled up, shivering. She was dressed for a night out, in a sleeveless black top. Her dark olive skin soon becoming a mass of goose bumps. Her corduroy jacket and scarf had been taken from her during the search, along with a purse containing notes, and receipts. Eventually she fell into a fitful sleep.
She woke in a cold sweat. There was the sound of her cell door unlocking. In the dismal light, Anna could see a women dressed in a short white coat. The sinister looking women barked” Get up you traitorous bitch, we are now ready for you.”