The prisoner extraction from Pertane prison turns the regime’s own paperwork into an escape route. James Mowry and Skriva claim authority to take three prisoners for immediate interrogation, secure their release through a signed receipt, and move them out before the prison can resolve the contradiction created by a second collecting party. The maneuver carries the escapees beyond the prison doors, but its aftermath is reported in fragments: some participants are dead or captured, while the news account does not establish the fate of everyone who may have escaped.

The Requisition

Mowry presents the demand as routine official business, requesting three prisoners for immediate interrogation and producing a requisition form for Commandant Tornik. His officious manner and urgency lend the request an administrative shape. When Tornik insists that regulations must be observed and that both men sign, Mowry and Skriva comply: Mowry signs with a confident flourish, and Skriva adds a hurried signature beneath his. The exchange makes the prison’s rules appear to authenticate the very transfer that will defeat its control.

Gurd and his companions are brought in wearing wrist-chains. A guard unlocks their manacles and takes them away, while the prisoners stand silently beside the men claiming custody. The apparent formality is precarious. As Mowry turns to leave, Tornik objects that the prisoners are going without wrist-chains and asks whether the supposed colonel has brought any manacles. His question exposes the practical weakness in the performance: the papers may authorize a transfer, but the absence of restraints makes the prisoners’ departure conspicuous. The evidence establishes the challenge, not whether Tornik has yet identified the deception.

Two Collecting Parties

At a later door, four plain-clothes men announce that the Kaitempi have come for one prisoner. Their arrival creates a second demand for custody while Mowry’s party is already in motion. The guard, for reasons the narration leaves unexplained, finds nothing extraordinary about two collecting parties turning up. That lapse gives the extraction its narrow opening: competing claims are treated as ordinary procedure rather than as a contradiction requiring immediate resolution.

The moment does not settle into safety. Mowry urges the others to run, and they sprint to the cars, expecting trouble. A third machine is behind their own. As they get away, Gurd mutters that a supposed authority has told him to keep quiet. The complaint registers the strain within the group even as the escape proceeds. They zigzag through a dozen side streets without encountering a radio-alarmed patrol car, briefly avoiding the kind of coordinated response that might have closed the route.

The Escape’s Uncertain Cost

A later news report labels the episode a daring jail-break and announces that two people were killed and two captured. It identifies Lathin’s body as having been found and says the Kaitempi claimed credit for the killing. The same report says Dopey was shot dead, while Brank and another person were taken alive. It also states that the two surviving captives had confessed to membership in a revolutionary force. These details establish that the escape attempt has a severe aftermath, but the report does not clearly map each named person onto the party that left with Mowry or explain how the casualty count relates to Lathin’s death.

The omission matters: the report says nothing about any others having escaped. That silence leaves the outcome incomplete rather than confirming that every fugitive has been recaptured. The episode therefore shifts from a seemingly successful administrative deception to an unsettled pursuit, in which the prison’s paperwork and the later newspaper account offer different kinds of partial knowledge. Mowry’s group has gained a head start, but the available account cannot establish the final disposition of everyone involved.