James Grippando - A King's ransom

“Your father doesn’t lie to you.”

“I don’t mean honest in the George Washington sense. I mean honest as in intimate. Two people baring their souls.”

“Your father doesn’t have many of those conversations with anyone.”

I thought for a second. The kitchen was suddenly so quiet I could hear the hum of the refrigerator. I hadn’t intended to raise the issue of the FBI tonight, but this seemed like an opportunity. “Mom, how much do you know about the Nicaraguan end of the fishing business?”

“Some.”

“How well do you know Guillermo?”

“Actually, I’ve met Guillermo only once. We hardly said two words to each other.”

She said it with conviction, almost as if she didn’t want to know Guillermo. Or maybe I was reading too much into it. “Do you trust him?”

“He’s been your father’s partner for over a decade. And I don’t see anyone else volunteering to run to Colombia to deal with the local police on behalf of the family.”

“No doubt he’s been a help.”

“Did something happen that makes you not want to trust him?”

I was thinking of Agent Huitt and his accusations, of course, but Mom seemed stressed enough without taking her down that path. “It’s just that you don’t know him, I don’t know him. You get right down to it, we don’t know Alex either. Someone from the family should be on the front line.”

“You still want to go to Bogota, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

She shook her head, almost groaning. “Why?”

“I just told you.”

“I don’t think you did.” She seemed to sense there was something I hadn’t told her.

“It’s hard to explain,” I said.

“Try.”

“This kidnapping has made me stop and realize that something’s missing between me and Dad, always has been missing. I have respect for him. He’s courageous, strong, all that. Growing up, I’d always thought I wanted to be like him. Not necessarily a fisherman, but like him nonetheless. The last few nights I’ve stayed awake wondering if we really are at all alike, and it’s occurred to me: I don’t know him that well. And he doesn’t know me either. Maybe that’s why it’s so important that I go on this trip. Find him. Maybe we can introduce ourselves.”

From her pained expression it was clear that she still didn’t want me to go. But she finally seemed to understand. “I don’t know what I would do if I lost both of you. Please, be very careful.”

I reached across the table and held her hand. “I will. I promise.”

It was their third camp in seven days. Or maybe it was eight days. Matthew wasn’t sure. The guerrillas had stolen his wristwatch, his only calendar.

At least a week had passed since they’d reached the mountains, almost two since the shoot-out in Cartagena. They’d traveled by foot and by mule, mostly climbing, but at times descending at angles as steep as forty degrees. More than once he was certain that they’d doubled back and covered the same ground. The exercise seemed designed to disorient the prisoners and discourage escape. Surely it had nothing to do with casting confusion to possible rescue teams. With guerrillas in control of almost half the country, a Rambo mission was out of the question. Even if these particular kidnappers weren’t formally aligned with any Marxist group, the army would still have to beat back more organized leftist forces like FARC and the National Liberation Army, and then literally climb a mountain to free Matthew and the others. Fat chance.

The captives numbered six now, counting Matthew and the Colombian daddy and mommy that Joaquin had bargained away from FARC to help prevent his escape. Two nights ago Joaquin and his team had joined camp with another band of rebels who had three other prisoners in custody. Those guerrillas were apparently part of Joaquin’s group, as they all obeyed his orders. Initially, Matthew hadn’t known what to make of it. During a bathroom break it was again Emilio, the Colombian daddy, who’d explained.

“It’s their division of labor,” he said. “One team specializes in the abductions. The other focuses on housing and guarding the prisoners.”

The three new prisoners, Matthew learned, weren’t new at all. A Swede and a Canadian were in their second month of captivity, having been abducted together from a mining project near the Ecuadorian border. The Canadian was from Saskatchewan, a strapping, confident cowboy at heart who acted more like a Texan. The Swede was more reserved, more bitter about the whole experience. So far the only thing he’d told Matthew about himself was his name, Jan Lunden. The body language, however, seemed to place blame on the Canadian for the mess they’d gotten into.

The third new prisoner was another Colombian, a banker who’d simply driven down the wrong road on his way to work one day-sixteen months ago. Time in captivity had taken its toll on him. Pants that had once fit him now gathered around his waist. A thick beard covered his face, hiding the sunken cheeks. His skin was dry and flaky, the worry lines on his forehead seemingly carved in wax. His long hair was tangled in knots, and a strange shade of orange. Hair wasn’t naturally that color on any human being. It had to have been malnutrition.

Most shocking of all, he was just thirty-eight years old.

His appearance had left Matthew speechless, which was just as well, since the prisoners were rarely allowed to speak to one another. That wasn’t Joaquin’s rule. The edict had come from Aida, a thirteen-year-old girl who seemed overeager to use her M-1.30-caliber carbine. Aida was the low-level guerrilla designated to deliver meals to the prisoners, usually potatoes and a few beans. Routinely, she’d drop most of it on the ground while serving, feigning clumsiness. It was always intentional. She clearly relished her power over the captives, and she asserted it by spilling their small rations of food and giggling about it or by enforcing stupid rules, like no talking during meals. Matthew surmised that females, especially young girls, were low in the pecking order in Joaquin’s group. Aida took it out on the prisoners, the only ones lower than she was.

For the third consecutive evening, the six ate in silence under Aida’s watch. A total of six guards were on duty, but everyone except Aida was busy trying to see who, with a flick of the wrist, could stick a hunting knife into a tree stump from four meters away. One of their buddies was on the other side of the stump sleeping off a hangover. It was typical behavior from these fools. Knives, guns, and grenades were all sources of amusement, all handled like toys without regard for anyone’s safety.

“ ?Idiotas! ” shouted Sleeping Beauty, adding a stream of choice words. An errant throw had landed the knife in his lap. Luckily it was the blunt end and not the blade. The others laughed as he stormed off to the hut.

The hut was where the guerrillas slept, men and women together. It was possible that the guerrillas had built it themselves, but Matthew thought it more likely that it had been taken by force from mountain peasants. With mud walls and a crude thatched roof, it looked like something a primitive Indian tribe might have constructed ten thousand years ago. It didn’t even have a chimney. A fire burned constantly to combat the cold mountain air, and smoke escaped through an open window. It reminded Matthew of the little shacks the Miskito Indians built along the Nicaraguan coast to smoke fish, only the Miskitos were smart enough not to smoke themselves.

The guards were still laughing, passing around a bottle. It was practically a nightly ritual, parties at sunset. A few swigs of rum, followed by basuco , a cheap and plentiful by-product of cocaine processing that would make them crazy out of their minds.