Bolivia: Free at Last

"The deal's been made," shouted a stubble-bearded Bernard Rifkin. "I'm getting the hell out of here!" And out he went, elbowing past the bowler-hatted women guards, and down the narrow stairs to the dirt street below. After him tumbled three more Americans and 13 other hostages, as their surprised lady jailers shrieked at them to halt. "The uncertainty was the signal to move," Michael A. Kristula recalled later. "I said to myself that if the crowd outside was hostile, all we could do was go up the stairs again. But the crowd was friendly."

Thus ended ten days of...

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