James Grippando - A King's ransom

Matthew was silent for fear of what he might say in anger. The audacity of this common criminal with a so-called cause was more than he could stand.

“Do you understand?” Joaquin said, more pointedly.

“I don’t understand any of this. This is crazy. You and your whole idiotic group of teenage Rambos is crazy.”

Joaquin glared. “Don Matthew, your attitude is not good. You have already cost me one good man. You are quickly proving to be more trouble than you are worth.”

Matthew said nothing. Joaquin turned away, then said something in Spanish to the smaller guard that Matthew didn’t quite hear.

“ Adelante, ” said the little one. Another surprise: The voice was a girl’s.

As commanded, he started walking back toward the truck, but she gave him a shove in the other direction, prodding him again with the AK-47. They walked through chest-high weeds until they came to a small clearing of softer grass with the cold black ashes of an extinguished campfire in the center. Two mules were tied to a tree, both bearing a mountain of gear and supplies. Beside them were two goats, a large black one and a smaller white one.

“Stop,” she said in Spanish. “On your knees, eyes forward.”

Slowly he knelt in the grass, his arms at his sides. He could sense she was standing behind him, but he didn’t look. He felt vulnerable, defenseless, and now he regretted the insults he’d hurled at Joaquin. These losers had murdered his friends, but he’d have to hold his tongue. They’d kill him just as quickly, especially if he continued to antagonize their leader in front of his little band of juvenile delinquents. He braced himself for some kind of disciplinary action, possibly a beating.

He heard footsteps behind, heavy boots coming swiftly toward him. He didn’t look back. He just gritted his teeth, expecting a swift kick to the kidneys. Joaquin suddenly whisked past him, then stopped, a long serrated knife in hand. He got down on one knee and began to sharpen it on a rock, the grinding noise piercing Matthew’s ears. When he finished, he held the blade at eye level, the metal glistening in the setting sun.

Matthew could not tear his eyes away from the eight-inch blade.

Then, in one swift motion, Joaquin wheeled, reached behind him, and grabbed the smaller goat by the throat. He pinned the animal on its back, jabbed the knife in its underbelly, and slit upward, tearing the ribs from the sternum.

It screeched in utter agony, a sound unlike any Matthew had heard since his days in Vietnam. It convulsed and kicked, still alive, blood spewing onto the ground. Matthew could hear the last breaths sucking through the gaping wound, through the sliced lungs.

Joaquin rose, unmoved by the horrific sounds of pain. He simply watched and listened as the animal’s screeches gradually weakened, its life-ending throes losing their kick. The agony lasted a solid minute, and then Joaquin seemed bored. He unholstered his pistol and shot the dying goat in the head.

Then he turned toward the prisoner.

My God, is this the way I’m going to die?

Matthew preferred to be shot making a run for it than to be mutilated by this butcher. His muscles tightened as Joaquin drew near. He was about to lash out, but he held back at the last instant, convincing himself in that tense moment that he was surely worth more alive than dead to Joaquin.

Joaquin wiped the bloody knife on Matthew’s shirt, one flat side and then the other. “Don’t ever run from me,” he said in a low, threatening tone. “I promise, death will not come so quickly for you.”

Matthew glared at him, wishing he could just deck this monster.

“Up,” ordered Joaquin.

Matthew rose, saying nothing. So much for Joaquin’s promise to treat him well. Matthew had the feeling it was only the first of many lies.

Joaquin said, “What you said before is true. This is crazy. We are all crazy.” Then he turned to his guerrillas and shouted, “ ?Bienvenidos a Locombia! ”

They laughed. It was a wordplay on “Colombia” that Matthew had seen before in newspapers, with no exact translation. But he got the drift. Welcome to Crazyland .

At Joaquin’s command, one guerrilla took Matthew by the left arm, the other by the right, as they led him to the pack mules.

I had a bizarre dream that night. My family owned a gold mine. We agreed to pay the kidnappers a king’s ransom for my father’s release. It was delivered in a dump truck, tons of glittering gold dust. The guerrillas came with shovels and wheelbarow. When the last of the mountain had been hauled away, the rebels released their hostage. Out from the jungle walked an eighty-six-year-old man who was not my father. Frantic, I chased after the guerrillas and shouted at the top of my lungs that they’d made a terrible mistake. One of them finally stopped and turned, almost laughing as he answered in the exact voice of the Colombian police officer I’d spoken to on the phone last evening.

You are Senor Alvarez, no?

Some people find meaning in dreams. I usually dismissed the good ones as wishful thinking and the power of suggestion; the bad ones I chalked up to stress, anxiety, and the power of indigestion. This time I wasn’t taking any chances. The next morning I drove to the Miami field office for a personal visit with the FBI.

I arrived at half past nine, took the elevator to the second floor, and checked in with the receptionist who sat on the other side of the bulletproof glass. I told her my name and why I was there.

“You want Agent Nettles, our legal liaison for international kidnappings.”

“I’ve seen him already. I’d like to see his supervisor, please.”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“No. But it’s no exaggeration to say that this is a matter of life and death. Please, I really need to see someone with authority.”

She gave me a quick once-over, as if trying to determine whether I was a nutcase. “I’ll see who’s available,” she said.

“Thank you.”

I sat in the Naugahyde chair and waited. Rising from the table beside me was a three-foot-tall trophy from a regional softball league. On the wall were two plaques that bore the names of FBI agents who’d lost their lives in the line of duty. It was in chronological order. There seemed to be more in recent years, like everything else. More guns. More criminals. More dead FBI agents. More Americans kidnapped abroad.

Finally the door opened and the receptionist called for me. “Come with me, please.”

She clipped a visitor’s badge to my shirt, and I followed her down the brightly lit hall. We made several turns, then came to a larger room that was partitioned into smaller workstations by chest-high dividers. Dozens of agents and other personnel were busy in their pods, reviewing files, working at computer terminals, or talking on the telephone. Work here was done without the noise and confusion of police stations, where people always seemed to be shouting at each other or dodging some drunk who was about to vomit on their shoes. An FBI field office had an air of dignity, practically a church, compared to the zoo-in-blue downtown.

We stopped at a conference room. Three walls were windowless; the fourth was completely glass and faced the interior workstations. Inside were two agents who rose from the table to greet me. The older one was Agent Sam Huitt, a man about my dad’s age. He had the same lines around his eyes as Dad did, too, not from years of squinting in the sun, I surmised, but from habitually narrowing his gaze with suspicion. The younger agent was Angela Pintero, a tall woman with olive skin and short brown hair styled into tight, efficient curls. We exchanged pleasantries and then took our seats, me across the table from the two of them.