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Show The Great Escape • 13 Each escapee took off his prison jumpsuit, left it in a pile, and received a bag containing a false ID, a revolver, and about ten dollars. Once the prisoners had all passed through the backyard and into the house on the next street, they were sent off in vans and large trucks to be distributed to waiting vehicles around the city and then to predetermined Inding places. Because of the delay, one truckload missed all then contacts, and their driver took them to his home just across the Montevideo border, in Shangri-La, one of the country's beachfront towns. A few hours later, after he had made the necessary calls and set up the necessary contacts, he drove them back mto Montevideo, right past a police roadblock that was searching all the vehicles leaving the city. After the last of the Tupamaros had left, Billy Rial called the police to report the escape. "The Tupamaros from the prison escaped through my house," he said. "That can't be. Are you sure?" came the reply. He repeated what he had said. "Okay. Weil make a note of it." After a few, minutes, he called again and was told, "We've called the prison and they said everything is fine." Undaunted and unbelieving, he walked out his front door and shouted to the guards on the wall, "The Tupamaros escaped!" There was no answer. Ten minutes later, about five A.M., a police truck came to verify Billy's initial phone call. Inside the prison, the guards finally checked the Tupamaros' cells, finding all the walls perforated, all that dirt under the beds and around the toilets, a few dummies under the covers, and a number of signs: "This room for rent. Good references required." "Through the earth with Sendic" (a double meaning of the canero motto "Por la tierra con Sendic": "For the land with Sendic"). |