John Gilstrap - Hostage Zero

This camp was a lot like the one where he’d first awakened, but many times the size, with probably ten times the people, many of them carrying machine guns, and more than a few wearing soldiers’ uniforms. He saw more of those raised-floor huts, too, like the one where he’d awoke, but most had no walls. The roofs were made of weeds, but the sides were wide open. It was hard to know exactly how many there were through blinding rain, but he counted eight, and thought he could make out the outlines of several more.

As he passed the first building, the soldiers who’d been escorting him peeled off and disappeared into the rain. Evan started to follow, but Oscar cupped the back of his neck with his palm and moved him forward. Under different circumstances, it would have been a nearly playful gesture.

“Almost there,” Oscar said.

The deeper they traveled into the camp, the barer the ground became, until finally, they entered what felt like the middle, where the mud was ankle deep. The trek ended at the base of a huge hut, at the bottom of a five-stair climb.

At shoulder height, the hut buzzed with activity and stank of gasoline and rotten eggs. A dozen or so half-naked people, a few not much older than he, moved about at a frenzied pace, clearly in a hurry to finish something, but Evan had no idea what the something might be.

Oscar nudged his shoulder, less playfully than last time. “Up,” he said. “You first.”

“Where are we?”

Oscar smiled, ignoring the water that cascaded from his nose and chin. “This is your new home.”

Evan made a point of showing nothing. Shielding his eyes from the rain, he tilted his head to look up to the top of the stairs, and then climbed. He wasn’t sure it made sense, but the higher he got off the ground, the less the place stank of gasoline. He was grateful for that, because it was a smell that made his stomach uneasy.

When he reached the top, the rain stopped falling, and he realized that he was under a roof. A second later, Oscar rejoined his side and craned his neck to look around, clearly searching for something or someone in particular. He made eye contact with a man on the far side of the enclosure and waved-a big wave, high over his head.

Evan followed his eye line and saw the man return the wave with a nod before turning back and finishing his conversation. The man looked angry, and the boy on the other end of the conversation looked frightened. When the man doing the talking punctuated his remarks with a slap against the side of the boy’s face, the kid cowered long enough for the man to turn away, and then he went back to work doing whatever he was doing. Something that involved cloth suspended over a tub.

The angry man walked with long, quick strides directly at them-so sternly that Oscar took a step away from Evan, who took a step the other way. Evan was not going to let himself be slapped by a stranger. As he closed the distance even more, the man’s pockmarked face drew back into a wide grin that looked more menacing than friendly.

“So this is the famous Evan Guinn!” the man proclaimed. “You look like crap.” He turned to Oscar. “What the hell have you been doing with him?”

Oscar responded in Spanish. Evan couldn’t understand the words, but the hand gestures said he was talking about a long damn walk through the jungle. The angry man just seemed to get angrier. He turned to the gathered crowd of workers and barked something at them. A few seconds later, someone hurried over with a white block in his hand. The man snatched it away.

He handed it to Evan. “Here,” he said. “It’s soap. Go use it.”

Evan stared. He understood the words, but they didn’t make sense to him.

The man took a step closer and shoved the bar at him again. “Take the soap and go wash all that shit off your face. Your hair, too. Before I cut it off with a pair of scissors.”

“What’s your name?” Evan asked.

It was the man’s turn to look confused. Then he laughed. “My name? Dios mio, did I forget to introduce myself?” He bowed deeply from the waist. It was an exaggerated motion that Evan knew was designed to embarrass him in front of people. “ Me llamo Antonio. But you can call me jefe.”

It sounded like “heffay.”

“Now, por favor Mister Evan Guinn, would you please be so kind as to wash that shit off your face and hair?”

Antonio had dead eyes that scared Evan. He decided it was not a time to argue. “Where?” he asked.

Antonio laughed again. He pointed out to the rain. “Welcome to the jungle,” he said, “where you never have to find a bathtub because a shower finds you every day.”

Was he kidding? He was supposed to just stand in the rain and scrub himself down in the middle of everyone?

Antonio leaned down to look Evan square in the eye. “I have a job to do, Mister Evan Guinn, and it requires you to be clean. If I have to do it for you, I will use a wire brush, and you will not like it.” His breath stank with an odor that Evan had never smelled before-sort of like medicine, but not really.

Not seeing a choice, Evan turned. He walked back into the rain and down the stairs, the bar of soap clutched in his hand. What the hell, he figured. Water was water, right? He could keep his pants on like he did in the dorm showers at Resurrection House (okay, that was a swimsuit, but still) and wash around them. As he started scrubbing his chest and his face with the soap-it was Ivory, his favorite-it actually felt pretty good. He did his arms next, but decided to forgo his legs and feet. Didn’t make a lot of sense when you were standing in a mud puddle. He finished by lathering up his hair, and then put the soap on the step while he allowed the rain to rinse him.

When he was done, the ground around his feet frothed white, and he felt a lot better. It wasn’t until he started to climb the stairs again that he realized how many people were watching him, and how desperately filthy they all were.

Antonio noticed it, too, apparently, because when he barked out an order, they all went back to work.

Under cover again and out of the rain, Evan handed over the bar of soap and stood there, dripping onto the floor. “Better?” he asked.

Apparently not, judging from the look on Antonio’s face. He barked another order, and a towel appeared-a ridiculous purple one with a picture of Mickey Mouse on it. “Dry yourself off,” he ordered. “And come with me.”

He led the way to the middle of the big covered platform, where an area had been cleared. Grateful for the opportunity to at least try to be dry, Evan employed the towel and watched as Antonio opened up a three-foot-long black tube and removed what looked like a stack of aluminum rods with black plastic on the ends. Evan was fascinated, in fact, as Antonio pulled on the rods and they expanded to form a tall framework of aluminum that stretched to six feet tall when it was set on its end. With the framework erected, Antonio reached into the tube again and unrolled a picture onto the frame. When it was all done, they had a tall picture of a seaside resort, with lots of buildings built into the side of a steep hill and impossibly blue water in the foreground.

“That’s the Amalfi Coast,” Antonio said. “Very beautiful.”

With the picture set up, Antonio opened a padded envelope and removed a royal blue T-shirt with a Puma logo on the front, under an embroidered green, white, and red shield that sat dead center, just under the collar ring. The middle of the shield featured a stylized soccer ball with the letters FIGC in the middle.

“Put this on,” Antonio said.

“Why?” As soon as the question escaped his mouth, Evan pulled it back. He slipped the shirt over his head.

“You recognize?” Antonio said. “That’s the shirt for the national futbol team of Italia. ”