James Grippando - A King's ransom

“ Adelante! ” one of the guerrillas shouted. Move it.

Matthew said nothing, simply obeyed and kept walking.

For two days he’d bounced and rolled on the cold metal floor of a speeding truck. Frequent sharp turns had slammed his head against the metal sides at least a dozen times, once nearly knocking him unconscious. Even by South American standards, the driving was breakneck, the roads were merely adequate-and both were deteriorating as the journey wore on. At first he’d tried to keep track of turns in hopes of discerning the direction of their travels, but after a dozen left turns, a half dozen right turns, and two or three trips around traffic circles, that proved impossible. The disorienting effect of the blindfold wasn’t helping his sense of direction any. With his ear to the wheel well, he let the tires tell him this much: they’d moved from pavement to gravel to dirt to no roads at all.

The normal sounds of city life had long since vanished. It had been at least two bathroom breaks since he’d heard another vehicle rumble past in either direction. That was quite a while ago. The driver obviously didn’t have the bladder of a fifty-year-old man. Matthew had traveled a good part of the trip with his legs crossed, and twice he’d barely made it to the side of the road to relieve himself without soiling his pants. With little to eat and drink, however, nature’s callings turned less urgent. So far his captors had allowed him one hard-boiled egg, one arepa , a soft drink, and a few sips of water. He would have been hungry if he weren’t so concerned about more immediate causes of death.

He wasn’t gagged, and his feet weren’t bound. He’d thought about yelling or kicking the sides of the truck to draw attention, especially during the early part of the journey while they were still in the city. But he’d read the U.S. State Department’s travel advisories before leaving Nicaragua, and he’d followed the consular’s official advice on how to behave when abducted in a foreign country. Kick and scream when in public, but once you’re in the vehicle, quiet down and concentrate on surviving. You could end up beaten or drugged. Or worse.

Strange, but as yet he wasn’t overly concerned for his own safety. He worried about Cathy and wondered how she’d handle this. Who would break the news to her? Would it come by telephone, or would someone visit the house? Thankfully, Nick lived close by. This was going to be tough on the whole family, but it was hard to feel too sorry for himself. Hours of darkness behind the blindfold had forever etched in his memory the horrifying image of his friends riddled with bullets, dead on the deck of the Nina as their blood ran together in a crimson pool. Hector and Livan, two good guys in the wrong place with the wrong gringo at the wrong time. That was the scariest part for Matthew. He knew nothing about his captors except for one telling piece of information: with impunity, they killed the innocent.

“Stop,” said the guard. It was the first word of English that Matthew had heard since the abduction, but the commands quickly reverted to Spanish. “ Espera. ” Wait.

Matthew was squinting. Even the twilight of early evening was more than his sensitive eyes could stand. The setting sun was a bright orange ball in a magenta sky that hovered above the jagged ridges of snowcapped mountains. There was a break in the clouds, and long golden rays streamed like lasers across the open valley. Suddenly the light was gone, and he was standing in the long shadow of two other guerrillas. The first thing that impressed him was their weapons. Both were heavily armed, one with an AK-47 and two bandoliers of ammunition crisscrossing his chest, the other with an Israeli-made Galil assault rifle and a pair of grenades hooked to his belt. The second thing to strike Matthew was the obvious youth in their faces. They were barely teenagers.

The stocky one motioned with his gun, directing Matthew to a fallen log at the side of the road. “ El bano, ” he said.

Peeing in the weeds was just something Matthew was going to have to get used to.

Unescorted, he crossed the road and stopped at the log. The guerrillas were still watching as he unzipped, though he wasn’t sure why, except to further humiliate him. Finally they turned away and shared a cigarette. They didn’t seem overly concerned about his possible escape, probably because they were in the middle of nowhere. The dirt road they had traveled seemed to dissect an abandoned farm. Across the field, the dilapidated barn was barely standing. What was once a farmhouse had burned to its foundation so long ago that the remains were almost completely covered with weeds. Beyond were endless fields of some kind of crop. Sugarcane, was what it looked like. That gave Matthew a start. From his last trip to Colombia more than twenty years ago he remembered where most of the Colombian sugarcane was grown.

Good lord, they’ve dragged me as far as Cali . That gave him insight into the identity of his captors. The areas south of Cali were guerrilla strongholds of various Marxist groups.

He zipped his fly and glanced back at the guards. One was sitting in the truck with his hat over his eyes. The other was throwing stones at a fence post. Matthew took the moment of privacy to take stock of his possessions. Passport, gone. Wallet, gone. Ditto for his wristwatch. They’d left him with the clothes on his back and one essential that in these surroundings seemed like a luxury-his reading glasses. He didn’t imagine he’d be doing much reading. These sons of bitches appeared to be the most desperate group of illiterates he’d ever encountered.

Again he glanced at the guards. Now they were both seated in the van, their backs to their prisoner. Matthew took a good look across the valley. The tall sugarcane wasn’t that far away. In an all-out sprint he could reach it in sixty seconds, maybe less. It might take these stupid guards that long to notice he was gone. The downside, of course, was that he knew that these guys could shoot. Hector and Livan were the no-longer-living proof of that. One more look. The guy in the hat was sound asleep. The other was fiddling with the van’s radio. This was an opportunity. It might be his last opportunity. His heart was pounding, as if waiting for the brain to send the message- Run for it!

Suddenly, out of the weeds, another guerrilla rose, then two more. They were standing between Matthew and the sugarcane, just ten yards away from him. They’d been hiding on their bellies, invisible in their camouflage fatigues. Had he run for it, he would have stepped right on them.

The one in the middle came forward. He seemed a good bit older than the others, maybe thirty. Matthew recognized the eyes from the shrimp boat. He was the leader, the one who’d sported the Australian-style hat. The one who had murdered Hector and Livan.

“You were thinking about it, weren’t you?” he said in English.

“What?” said Matthew.

“You were going to run.”

“No.”

“You lie. I saw it in your eyes.”

Matthew glanced back at the two guards in the truck. They were standing, watching and smiling. They’d set him up. The whole incident had been a test to see if he’d try to escape.

He stepped closer, then stopped, staring Matthew directly in the eye. “My name is Joaquin. You are a prisoner of war, and you are now my responsibility. You will never escape, so don’t try.”

“Whose war?”

“The people’s.”

“Who are you?”

“That is not your concern.”

“What do you plan to do with me?”

“We intend to treat you as you deserve to be treated. If you are good, we are good to you. If you are bad, your family will be negotiating not for your release but for the return of your lifeless corpse for a proper burial. Do you understand me?”