A King's ransom

by James Grippando

  She looked right at me, almost through me, as if deciding whether I was trustworthy. Then she just started talking, her dark eyes fixed on the candle’s flickering yellow flame. “I never knew my father. He was an Italian businessman who traveled back and forth from Rome to Bogota. My mother would see him one weekend a month till I was about ten. I always knew when he was coming, because I had to go stay with my aunt. For years my mother deluded herself into thinking he was going to marry her someday. Deep down she must have known he already had a wife back in Italy.”

  “So your mother raised you alone?”

  “Yes, my older brother and me.”

  “You don’t keep in touch with them?”

  “No.”

  It was a flat “no,” the kind that didn’t invite inquiry.

  She sipped her wine and asked, “Don’t you want to know why?”

  “Only if you want to tell me.”

  “My brother is dead. He was killed.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “My mother thinks it was my fault, so she doesn’t speak to me.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say. Almost reflexively, I asked, “Was it your fault?”

  She looked away briefly. Then her eyes met mine and she answered in a soft, troubled voice. “I don’t know. After all these years, I still don’t know.”

  The waiter interrupted with the first plate. It smelled delicious, and he refused to leave until Alex had tasted it and told him how wonderful it was. Her somber mood was suddenly gone.

  “Enjoy,” she said. “With a meal this authentic, we must follow Antioquian custom.”

  “Which is what?”

  “While we eat, we can speak of nothing but the food. It’s an unbreakable rule.”

  I wasn’t sure if that was truly an Antioquian custom, but one thing was plain: I wouldn’t hear another word about her estranged mother and dead brother. At least not tonight.

  “Salud,” she said as she raised her wineglass, and I raised my glass of mineral water in return.

  24

  The NRA was laying down its weapons. Yankee fans were rooting for the Boston Red Sox. The French were eating English food and loving it.

  Matthew was sure all those things were happening. His tent was leaking, he hadn’t bathed in three weeks, his daily food ration had been cut to one plate of beans with rat droppings and a canned fish product that even he, a lifelong fisherman, couldn’t identify. It had been three days since his clothes had been soaked in a rainstorm, and he could still wring moisture from them. The putrid overflow from the hole in the ground that was their bathroom had started oozing downhill toward Matthew’s tent, but the guards only seemed amused by his complaints. Joaquin was still in charge, the Canadian was losing his fight with infection in his severed thumb, and the Swede was sniping at the other captives, certain that he was next in line for torture. Each night the young Colombian woman cried for hours in the darkness, praying to the Holy Infant and whispering the names of her children. No one held any realistic hope of a prompt release. All that, and temperatures were dropping by the hour. Late afternoon had brought their first hailstorm.

  This was the proverbial cold day in hell, and Matthew was living it.

  It had amazed everyone, Matthew included, the way the Canadian had maintained his backbone even after losing his thumb. The stub was still bleeding when Joaquin had returned with a pen and paper, insisting that he write a letter to his wife. Will told him it wouldn’t do any good, that he and his wife had a firm pact: If he was kidnapped by rebels, never pay, no matter what. Only after Joaquin threatened to cut off his other thumb did Will finally acquiesce. With his left hand he wrote the exact words Joaquin dictated, an impassioned plea begging his family to break their no-ransom pact and cough up whatever money the kidnappers demanded. Joaquin had made a spectacle out of it. The entire letter was composed in front of the other prisoners, a form of intimidation, a demonstration of how even the most defiant prisoner eventually capitulated to the will of his captor. The Canadian dated it, signed it at the bottom, and handed it over to Joaquin. The boss man seemed pleased. Strangely, the Canadian had seemed even more smug as he returned to his seat around the fire with the other captives.

  “I signed it ‘Mickey Mouse,’ ” he whispered to the others.

  They were all shocked-Matthew, Emilio the Colombian, Jan the Swede.

  “They’ll kill you,” said Jan.

  “These idiots won’t even notice. I signed in real tiny letters. You need a magnifying glass to see it. But my wife will know right away it’s not my real signature. When she looks closely and sees what I wrote, she’ll know I was forced to write the letter and don’t really want her to pay a ransom. Pretty smart, huh?”

  “Joaquin has your passport,” said Matthew. “He can check your real signature against the tiny scrawl you put on his letter. If he looks closely and sees Mickey Mouse. .”

  Will was suddenly ashen. Matthew wished he hadn’t said anything.

  Dark, ominous clouds moved in from the east. The jagged peaks in the distance disappeared behind thick, misty shades of black and gray, and night seemed to fall over their camp long before sunset. One of the guards brought them hot coffee. That was actually the one pleasure about captivity in the Colombian mountains. The coffee was the best Matthew had ever tasted. He sipped it slowly to prolong the enjoyment and warming effect. The chill was back just thirty seconds after the cup was empty. He had a wool blanket, but it wasn’t big enough to cover his whole body. He had to alternate between warming his feet, then pulling it up to warm his torso. It wasn’t raining, thankfully, but heavy clouds hung like a wet rag over their camp. This was going to be the coldest night yet, Matthew could tell. It was even too cold for the guards to drink their aguardiente outdoors. They were snug in their smoke-filled hut. Aida and another low-ranking rebel were ordered to sit outside and watch the prisoners alone. By nine o’clock they were all shivering. Matthew complained.

  “We need a fire.”

  Aida walked over and said, “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “No outdoor fires. Chulos are too close.” She turned and walked away.

  Matthew had no idea what she was talking about, having a vague recollection that “chulo” could mean either “pimp” or “buzzard.” Emilio explained. “Chulos is what they call the Colombian army. Joaquin must have information that there’s a military offensive going on against the guerrillas. He’s afraid that a fire at night might give away our position.”

  “Then why do they have a fire in their hut?”

  “Because they’re the guards and we’re the prisoners.”

  The Swede sat up, huddled beneath his blanket, his knees against his chin to stay warm. “This is absurd. There’s no chulos out here in the middle of nowhere. They’re punishing us because Will signed his name Mickey Mouse.”

  “Don’t blame this on me,” said Will.

  “How else do you explain it? Coldest night yet, and they won’t even let us have a fire. Way to go, Mickey.”

  “One more crack out of you and I’ll cut off your Swedish meatballs.”

  Jan shot him a contemptuous glare but said nothing. The prisoners sat in tense silence for a moment, and then Emilio said, “We could huddle for warmth. We did that the last time I was kidnapped, and it worked.”

  “I’m up for it,” said Matthew.

  Jan glanced at the other Colombian, the thirty-eight-year-old with straggly orange hair who looked like an octogenarian. “Not him,” Jan whispered. “He has fleas. I’ve seen them in his beard.”

  Matthew and Emilio looked at one another, as if thinking the same thought. It didn’t seem fair for the five of them to huddle while a sixth slept alone and nearly froze to death. The man was the most antisocial in the group, having yet to utter more than one or two words to anyone, but he was still one of them.

  “He can sleep on the end next to me,” said Matthew.

  Emilio quietly explained the plan in Spanish to the orange-bearded
Colombian and the young mother from Bogota. The six started to move closer together when Joaquin approached in the darkness. He had two other guerrillas with him.

  “We’re just trying to stay warm,” said Matthew.

  Joaquin didn’t seem interested. He had fire in his eyes, but without the glazed and cloudy look that came from drink. This was raw anger. He glared at the Canadian and said, “You. Come with us.”

  “What now?”

  Joaquin pointed his rifle. “Get up.”

  Will rose slowly. The others watched in silence as the two guerrillas grabbed him, one on each side, and pulled him toward Joaquin. It was eerily reminiscent of the day he’d lost his thumb.

  The Colombian woman sat up in panic. “?Que hace?” she asked. What are you doing?

  Joaquin answered her in Spanish. “The Canadian’s wife got his thumb by courier. She’s agreed to pay the ransom.” He shoved Will and said, “Move it.”

  Will started walking. The team of four walked quickly past the guerrillas’ hut and continued toward the path that led into the jungle. Matthew and the others followed with their eyes until the group was out of sight in the darkness.

  Matthew looked at Emilio and asked, “You think it’s true? Could his wife have gotten the thumb already?”

  “It’s possible, I suppose. I just hope they didn’t figure out that Mickey Mouse signature.”

  “They’re following the same path they used to take me to the FARC camp,” said Matthew. “Maybe they’re going to try to sell him.”

  Jan said, “You heard Joaquin. His wife agreed to pay the ransom. The lucky son of a bitch is going home.”

  “This is bad.” It was the old-looking Colombian, the one who never spoke. To the surprise of the others, he understood English. “Joaquin would never escort prisoners out of the jungle. He leaves that for his underlings.”

  “Then maybe he is going to sell him to FARC,” said Jan.

  “Too late for that. You have to understand, Joaquin is not in the business of housing prisoners. Whenever he makes an abduction, he takes the merchandise straight to FARC and sells it, if he can. He keeps a prisoner only when FARC offers him too little money. He wouldn’t take the Canadian back to FARC a second time only to have FARC offer him less money than before. He’d sooner kill him.”

  “But then he gets nothing,” said Jan.

  “This time, yes, he gets nothing. But if he sells too cheap, he cuts his own throat in the long run. He has to keep the price up for his merchandise.”

  The Swede was getting edgy. For all his sniping at Will, he didn’t like the way this conversation was headed. “They can’t just kill him. That’s ludicrous. There’s too much of an investment.”

  “It’s the way Joaquin does business. When someone doesn’t look like they’re going to pay off, he cuts his losses and gets rid of him.”

  “But what about you?” said Matthew. “You’ve been here sixteen months. If it’s true he dumps the ones who won’t pay, why are you still here?”

  The deep-sunken eyes turned deadly serious. “My family has paid. Four times. I’m his annuity.”

  Matthew shuddered at the thought.

  “I’ve seen this situation before,” the man continued. “Joaquin isn’t like FARC. His little group doesn’t have enough supplies and guards to watch more than five or six prisoners, tops. If one of them isn’t working out, he has to make room for a new one.”

  “You mean he lets one go?” Jan asked hopefully.

  The man’s voice dropped to little more than a raspy whisper. “I mean one way or another, he makes room.”

  A lone gunshot pierced the night like thunder. The Colombian woman shrieked. On impulse, Matthew’s head snapped toward the dark path the guards had followed. The shot echoed in a long, almost continuous crackle that rolled across the mountaintops like an endless ocean swell. It was still rolling, faint but discernible, when Joaquin and his guerrillas emerged from the jungle.

  It was just the three of them. Will was not among them.

  The prisoners exchanged uneasy glances, saying not a word as Joaquin and his fellow executioners disappeared into their hut.

  25

  Nineteen hours in Colombia. I’d counted off every one of them, including the wee hours of a sleepless night.

  Alex and I had returned from the restaurant before midnight. She went straight to bed. The couch was all mine. I nearly dozed off around 1:00 A.M., then shot bolt upright at the shrill noise of what at first sounded like a drunk screaming his lungs out on the balcony next door. Turned out it was actually a rooster crowing at the moon. Naturally this startled me, since it was hours before dawn and silly me had always thought it was the big orange ball on the horizon that got roosters to crowing. Once awake, I quickly put aside the whole question of this bird’s lousy sense of timing and wondered, more to the point, what in the world a rooster was doing in an apartment building in downtown Bogota in the first place. I had just about convinced myself that it was all a dream when, fifteen minutes later, the crazy bird crowed again, this time waking Alex. She came out to the kitchen for a drink of water and explained that roosters lose all sense of time when housed in a high-rise building. Her tone was so matter-of-fact, as if the whole world knew how screwed up an urban rooster could be. She went back to sleep without a problem. I, on the other hand, was awake for good, anticipating the cock’s next untimely crow, checking the clock repeatedly, counting the hours and then the minutes to our deadline, even though the letter from the kidnappers had set a time for our meeting that wasn’t determined by any clock or insomniac rooster: Sunday at sunrise.

  At 4:00 A.M. I was dressed and ready to leave the apartment. Alex was in the shower. I waited in the living room, no television and no radio. Noise traveled freely in the old apartment, even through closed doors, and without moving from the couch I could still hear Alex humming what sounded like a bolero as streams of hot water pelted her firm body. The thought of her nakedness flashed in my mind, though I was far too stressed to be even remotely aroused. Last night’s dinner and conversation still had me puzzled anyway. One moment it had felt like a first date, the next like a jailhouse interview with a convicted felon. The last thing it had resembled was a conversation with a trained negotiator the night before a first communication with kidnappers. Only now, as we were about to head out and accomplish the thing we had come here to do, did I finally see the wisdom in her curious method. We had prepared thoroughly back in Miami, and any last-minute discussion about the kidnapping would only have made me crazy with anticipation and worry. She’d taken my mind as far away from this morning’s meeting as possible, teasing me with her past, even flirting a little with her eyes over a delicious Antioquian dinner. My friend J. C. would have said she was messing with my head. In reality she was just keeping my head screwed on before the most stressful event in my life. At least, that’s what I assumed she was doing.

  “You ready, Nick?” she asked as she emerged from her bedroom.

  “I think so.”

  “You nervous?”

  “I know so.”

  “I can go alone, if you want.”

  “Are you crazy? Let’s do it.”

  It was almost two hours before sunrise when we left the apartment and drove east to Calle 20 in the historic Barrio la Candelaria, Bogota’s well-preserved city center. We parked near Quinta de Bolivar, an impressive colonial mansion that was once Bolivar’s home, now a museum. More important, it marked the beginning of our climb to Monserrate, the lower of two impressive peaks that rise to the east of Bogota.

  Monserrate was a popular tourist destination. At over thirty-two hundred meters, the summit offered an inspiring view, though according to Alex the expensive French restaurant alone was worth the journey. It could be reached by a funicular railway and cable car, but not at five o’clock in the morning. At that time of day walking was the only option, and it took us about an hour and fifteen minutes with no rest stops. It turned cooler as we climbed, and in the early-morning
dampness I was glad for a thick sweater and jacket. Alex and I took turns carrying the shortwave radio in the backpack. Fortunately, the path was comfortably graded, and dressed stone from bottom to top offered secure footing. To my surprise, we weren’t the only climbers. The safety was marginal, but even bandits had to sleep, and Sunday at 5:00 A.M. was about the only time anyone in their right mind ascended Monserrate in the dark.

  Four climbers in front of us headed straight for the observation deck near the old church. We walked in the same general direction, past the street vending stalls that were all closed, heading finally toward the picnic grounds behind the church. The kidnappers hadn’t told us to ascend to the top of Monserrate to enjoy views of the city’s tiled roofs and the plains that stretched beyond to the rim of the savanna. It was all about reception on our shortwave radio.

  Alex set up the radio on a picnic table near the ridge. For miles below us stretched Bogota and the suburbs it had swallowed to the north. The sun had not yet appeared, but its anticipatory glow was already brightening the horizon. It was that ambiguous hour between night and day. Block by block the shadows were disappearing. The city lights seemed fuzzy, still burning but fading fast, like persistent guests who’d overstayed their welcome. It would be daylight in a few minutes, and in a few hours the park would be crowded with visitors. For now, however, Alex and I were completely alone. She switched on the shortwave radio and set it to the frequency the kidnappers had specified in their letter. I heard nothing but static, but it wasn’t quite sunrise. All we could do was wait.

  “What if they don’t call us?” I asked.

  “They will.”

  She answered with such assurance that I didn’t doubt her for a second.

  The radio hissed in a low, empty tone that signified nothing. Alex listened, alert for any change in reception. For nearly twenty minutes we sat at that picnic table, the radio set to the same blank frequency. Through the trees I watched the top of the orange globe rise from behind the peaks to the east. With each passing minute it grew bigger, its arrival magnified by the low band of clouds that turned purple and pink, an endless ribbon stretching the length of the Andes. Slowly the ribbon burned away, and the sun was alone in the sky, too bright to look at directly. At that very moment the radio crackled. At first it was a subtle break in the hiss. Then we heard the voice in Spanish.