This prison was where the worst criminals in Afghanistan were sent to rot.

And in the intense heat wave of 1972, 29-year-old Charles Sobrage could hardly breathe.

The air more heat than oxygen.

He had to escape.

It wasn't the first time Charles found himself needing to escape.

He had done it less than a year earlier in India.

That time he'd been able to drug his guard.

But to scare the unflappable Afghanis, he needed to escalate his theatrics.

In Afghanistan, prisoners were responsible for their own food.

So Charles employed a runner called a bacha to get essentials like bread or rice or tea.

Today he instructed his bacha to bring him a syringe and a glass.

Charles's cellmate watched in horror as he used the syringe to draw his own blood and transfer it to the glass.

When it was filled to the brim, Charles toasted his cellmate and drank the entire thing.

Then he called for the guards, moaning and riding in pain.

By the time they reached his cell, Charles was vomiting blood.

Thinking he had a bleeding ulcer, prison officials rushed him to the hospital.

While under medical care, Charles waited for his moment to strike.

After a few days, he slipped a sedative into his guard's cup of tea.

Once the guard passed out, Charles broke free of his shackles and strolled out of the hospital, a free man.

It was just one of many audacious escapes for Charles so brage, a man capable of slithering out of precarious situations.

This skill earned him his first nickname, the serpent.

And like many snakes, Charles was deadly.

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