“You are deep in the jungle, Miss Farber. You may scream as much as you wish. It makes me no difference. No one will ever hear you. Two things I must warn you about, however. If you scream and thrash about after dark it is possible a jungle animal such as a jaguar might be curious about you. Besides the open doorway there are high window openings behind you and also there is a hole in the roof. Things might come in. If a jaguar were to enter this room you have no defense whatsoever except to call the guard, who might or might not be able to save you from a jungle cat. So I caution you to remain quiet at night.
“The other danger comes if your table were to fall over somehow. If you make the table move by swaying or rocking, for instance, and it falls sideways to the floor, the ants and scorpions would eat you alive beginning with every orifice they could find. I assure you it would be the most violent and painful death imaginable…far worse than anything I might dream up myself.” He smiled again. “My men will put oil on the legs of your table every day. That will keep the bad things from climbing up to reach you.”
He pointed up. “See the net over the table between you and the ceiling? It is there to keep insects or perhaps a snake from falling onto the table. If something does happen to reach you please call out to the guard. He should always be nearby.”
The man turned and started across the room. “Wait,” Nicole shouted. “Wait! You can’t leave me like this! I’m going to die here!”
“Most likely you won’t. It is in our interest to keep you alive. The guards will enjoy having you here as a diversion and although they do not speak English, they will respond to your call. Oh yes, one more thing I need to do.” He pulled a phone from his pocket, walked closer to her and held it up. “A little insurance to get your boyfriend to cooperate.”
He smiled appreciatively at her body and snapped a picture of her, naked and bound to the tabletop.
“You bastard! What’s this all about? Why are you doing this? Who the hell are you?” All her fear had gone – she felt nothing but unbridled fury.
“Ah, Miss Farber. Everything in its time. I really don’t care one bit about you. You’re nothing more than my insurance policy. But Mr. Sadler – he’s the important one. I truly am interested in him. Now I suggest you lie back and relax. It is…” he looked at his watch. “…three o’clock in the afternoon. In about two hours you will be released to eat and do your business. Shortly thereafter it will be dark. It is your first night in the jungle. I hope you sleep well. It is better to sleep than to stay awake. Trust me on that one.”
He left the room.
Panic rose in her body as Nicole thought of Brian trapped at the bottom of a cave. The man with the mustache had said he was very interested in Brian. If that were true, surely he would rescue him. Did he even know Brian was there? Had Sam told him where Brian was? Would the man ultimately kill Brian once he got whatever he wanted? She had nothing but questions. No answers. Regardless, she felt she must keep Brian’s whereabouts a secret.
She drifted in and out of a state of slumber. It was hot and she was sweating, although she could do nothing about it with her arms and legs tied to the table. She did notice that the iron pipe holding her right hand was slightly loose. The entire time she was awake she gripped the pipe with her palm, trying to move it. It had a slight give but was still solidly welded to the metal table.
A different man walked into the hut. He walked to her and smiled, showing gaping spaces where teeth had once been. He leered at her body and put his hands above her breasts. She twisted and he laughed but he didn’t touch her. He began removing the ropes around her legs. Once they were free she bent her knees, feeling the blood begin to flow again through her calves and thighs.
The guard untied her arms and motioned to the corner. She sat on the table as he stood a few feet from her, his hand on a pistol in a holster. Sliding her feet to the floor, she stood and walked where he had pointed. There was nothing – not even a pot. She turned her back to him and urinated on the dirt floor. He applauded and she turned around and raised her middle finger to him defiantly. He laughed and motioned her back to the table. She sat, crossing her legs in a fruitless attempt to cover herself.
He handed her a dirty pan with bread slices and a sloppy lukewarm concoction that looked like thick soup. He gave her a plastic bottle with no lid.
“Agua fria.” Cold water.
The sight of food made her stomach growl. She was starving. She sat naked in front of the guard and used her fingers to devour the meager meal. She took a drink of water and nearly gagged; it tasted awful and she thought she’d die from a dread disease if she weren’t killed first. But she had to have it.
One thing had to happen, she thought to herself. I have to get out of here while I still have my strength.
“What are you looking at, you jerk?” she snapped at the guard.
He merely smiled and watched her small, pert breasts move up and down as she drank the disgusting water. When she was finished he motioned her to lie down and he retied her restraints. He took his time with her legs, using the time to gaze at her body. He smiled broadly as he checked her thoroughly. She decided not to waste effort on this so she merely closed her eyes and let him finish his work. He took the pan and bottle and left.
It was almost dark and Nicole felt totally alone. She shivered from fear as she thought about the animals that could be lurking everywhere. If the man with the mustache was telling the truth – if she really was in the middle of a jungle – she could be in serious danger whether she cried out or not.
Sometime during the night she awoke. Disoriented, she remembered a dream that jolted her senses. Suddenly she remembered she’d been scared – she’d heard a terrifying scream. Now she heard it again. It wasn’t a dream! It was real! There was an animal out there somewhere close by, probably a large cat. The dim glow of moonlight filtered through the openings and she looked around. There was a flicker from the doorway – the glow of a fire.
Once again she worked her right hand around the metal post to which it was tied. She spent what felt like hours moving the pole back and forth ever so slightly, hoping to loosen it. She yearned to move her arms and legs more to get the circulation going and she debated calling the guard to see if he’d let her loose for a few minutes. But she remembered her captor’s warning about crying out during the night. So she remained silent and eventually dozed off.
When she awoke it was morning. A new guard was standing next to the table. Once he saw her eyelids flutter he set to work removing the ropes from her feet, then her hands. He offered her his hand to sit up and she accepted, since her limbs were stiff and sore. She sat on the table for a moment then walked unsteadily to the corner and turned to the wall. When she was finished she looked around. Instead of ogling her as the other guard had done, her captor was applying a greasy substance to the legs of the table. Nicole found herself surprised at the gratitude she felt that insects or small animals would not be able to make their ways up to where she was tethered.
She raised her arms above her head to stretch her muscles then quickly dropped them again when the guard began staring at her. She saw the plate and water bottle sitting on the table and she ate standing up this time with her back to the man.
She ate at the end of the table and ran her hand lightly along the metal post she’d worked on earlier. The guard didn’t notice – he was checking the netting above the table. She saw that one of the weld spots had begun to pull apart. If she could break the weld, the pipe would break away from the table and one arm would be free.
Finally her guard said, “Senorita, sientate!” and slapped the tabletop. She sat, and then lay down with her arms raised. As he began to tie her wrists, she moaned.
“Too tight!” she said, wincing. He responded by loosening the ropes significantly.
“Muy bien,” she smiled at him, using some of the few words of Spanish she knew. “Gracias, senor.”
He loosely tied her ankles then he ran his rough hand up her left l
eg far above the knee, letting it rest there for a moment. This was the first time any of the men had touched her and she shivered involuntarily. He smiled at her and she managed a feeble smile in response. She knew the price for getting her ropes loosened might be more than she wanted to pay, but she had to keep her limbs working if she was going to make it out alive. There might be worse things than death but she was determined to maintain her inner strength – to do anything she had to do to free herself and escape.
Alone again, Nicole began working at the metal post by her right hand. Now that she knew where the weld was failing she concentrated on that area. It was a slow process and she eventually drifted into a restless slumber.
Chapter Six
Throughout the day Nicole catnapped. When she was awake she was working on the pipe, and by late afternoon she had made some progress. She worried that when the guard came to untie her he would notice the loose pipe so she decided to stop working on it until after she was fed. Once she was tied again she would give it her hardest effort and see if she could achieve success.
As she lay on the table she again thought about Brian. Was he still lost at the bottom of the cave or did Alfredo return to rescue him? She hoped he had but worried that he had run into the kidnappers as they came up the same trail to the cave while Alfredo was coming down. Tears ran down her cheeks as her thoughts turned to what-ifs. What if Brian were dead? What if this was the end of the wonderful relationship they had experienced so far? What if the man who kidnapped her now had Brian also? Please God, save him. Please.
Time passed slowly and Nicole’s arms and legs throbbed painfully. The slightly loosened ropes allowed her to move her limbs a little. That helped but the only relief came when she concentrated on something else and tried to forget her sore body. The insect noises were constant; she undoubtedly really was deep in the jungle. She set her mind to thoughts of escape. How would she free herself from her guard? If she were loose would she find others outside? She doubted it, because she never heard conversation. She sometimes heard noise that sounded like music on a Spanish radio station. She figured they posted only one guard who listened to the radio while he killed time.
How would she get clothes – especially shoes? Were hers still here somewhere? And how would she get out of this place? Was her only route of escape to flee through the jungle? There had to be a road. She hadn’t heard the sounds of a vehicle but also she didn’t know how big this place was. If there were a road, maybe she could flag down a passing vehicle.
She was awake when the guard entered. He was the same man from this morning – the guard who had left her ropes looser.
“Hola, senorita.” His eyes spent plenty of time on the merchandise as he untied her tethers. He released her legs first then her left hand, and was getting ready to untie the rope from the loose pipe. She had to be sure he didn’t discover it so she moved her free hand to her breast, feeling it and pinching her nipple slightly as she smiled up at him. He watched her, transfixed. His mind was a million miles away from a loose pipe with a rope tied to it. That was easy, Nicole said to herself, thinking this might be a means to overpower him when the time came.
She paid a price for enticing him. After he fed her and she had gone to the bathroom he motioned for her to sit on the table and put his nasty hands on her breasts. He felt them roughly, squeezing and pinching her nipples in his fingers. She sat and took it, smiling, putting the scene out of her mind and thinking instead of freedom. I can endure anything. I can endure anything to get away.
After what seemed like forever he motioned her to lie down and he retied the ropes. Once again he watched her naked body instead of noticing that she was holding on to the pipe to keep it from moving. He tied the tethers even looser than before – she was grateful that she could move her arms and legs around somewhat and that her effort to break the pipe would be easier with the rope loose. The guard stood over her, moved his eyes down her body approvingly from head to toe.
“Buenas noches, senorita.”
Now we’re telling each other good night. If I’m lucky, maybe this is the last time we do that.
At some point during the night the shift changed. It was dark when she heard the sound of voices. Two men were talking softly in Spanish some distance away. Soon the conversation stopped; one of the two men had ended his shift and gone home.
For a couple of hours she worked hard to loosen the welded pipe holding her right hand. Finally she gave it a valiant effort and heard a loud snap as it came free. Oh God, please don’t let the guard have heard that. She lay still and quiet for a long time but nothing happened. She figured either he was asleep or too far away from her door to have heard. That was lucky.
She was careful not to bang the metal table with the pipe when she moved her right hand. It was still roped to the pipe as she swung it over her body to her left side. She used her left hand to separate the pipe from the rope, which fell silently to the ground. Holding the pipe with her left hand, she used her right to loosen the other tether. Both hands now undone, she carefully set the pipe on the table next to her. It was about two feet long and over an inch in diameter. It would be a decent weapon for someone who had nothing else.
Nicole untied her feet and she was free. She stood and flexed her arms and legs until they were in perfect working order. It was very dark both inside the building and out. She cautiously looked through the open doorway – there were two other buildings in the moonlight, each of them thirty or forty feet from her. Outside one of the buildings there was a small campfire that had dwindled to dying embers. The guard was probably asleep in that building since she could hear nothing except the jungle sounds to which she was becoming accustomed. It was time to put her plan into action and she prayed that she was right about there only being one man here during the night.
The guard with almost no teeth who had leered at her the first night was asleep in the building nearest the campfire. He lay on a small cot and there was a powerful rifle sitting by the door in case a predator came into the camp. He was supposed to check on Nicole every couple of hours but she was quiet and other than looking at her naked body, there wasn’t much to check on. It was hot so he took off his shirt and trousers and slept on the cot in a dirty undershirt and shorts.
He woke suddenly to sounds of shouting. “Help me! Help me!” Although he spoke no English, he sensed the panic in the words the woman was yelling. He grabbed the rifle and ran the short distance from his building to her makeshift prison.
He stopped short of the doorless frame to her building and yelled, “Senorita! Esta el gato?” Is it a cat? Although he feared retribution if Nicole died on his watch the man standing in his underwear in the middle of the jungle was far more afraid that a jaguar might pounce from the doorway and eat him alive before he had a chance to shoot it.
The woman didn’t answer. He listened closely. He didn’t hear any sounds from her nor did he hear any rustling or movement from an animal. He carefully entered the building, the rifle ready to fire if necessary.
He literally never knew what hit him. Nicole was standing just to the left side of the entrance in the darkest part of the building. She held the iron pipe with both hands above her head – as soon as the guard was inside she brought it down with all her might. There was a pulpy, sickening sound as his skull fractured and he fell to the ground without a sound. She knew he was dead and was surprised that she felt nothing but relief.
Nicole grabbed his rifle and ran outside. Naked, she walked to the building she had watched him leave and carefully looked in. There was a cot near the door and the man’s clothes and shoes were sitting on the floor in a heap beside it. There were other cots, some lockers and furniture but there were no other people. She ran to the third building. It contained a stove and an old-fashioned icebox and a rickety table with some chairs around it.
She was alone. Thank God for that. She went back to the building with the cot and rummaged through the lockers. She found her clothes and her totally dead
iPhone. Nicole put on her clothes and the guard’s combat boots, thinking they might be more functional than her own shoes if she had to run through the jungle. She glanced again at her phone, bitterly disappointed, but she doubted she would have had a signal anyway. She stuck it in her pocket. Once she got away she could work on finding Brian. She hoped that he wasn’t still lost in the cave after all this time. If he was it could be too late.
Nicole went back to the dead guard’s body and gingerly removed his wristwatch, averting her eyes from his ruined head. It was almost midnight. If the shift change had happened after dark it was possible no one would come back for twelve hours. On the other hand, after daylight all bets were off. Anyone could show up and anything could happen. She only had a few hours to decide what to do next.
She rummaged through the guard’s pockets and found a little money. It was Guatemalan, a good indicator that she was no longer in the country where she had started out. She stuck the money in her pocket along with the watch.
Keeping the rifle ready, Nicole walked the perimeter of the camp. Since the moon was almost full she could see clearly. The place was very high – on top of a hill or a mountain. There were no lights in the distance so she figured it was really remote. On the first day her captor had told her she could yell all she wanted – that alone was a sign there was no one around.
A road led away from the site down a steep hill. She followed it for a hundred feet and saw a clearing. There was a tired old Toyota 4Runner parked there! The car was parked so far from the camp that she knew why she had never heard an engine.
She looked inside. The key was in the ignition. Nicole jumped in and turned the key. The vehicle started immediately and she saw that the gas tank was over half full.
Brian Sadler Archaeological Mysteries BoxSet Page 36
