A King's ransom

by James Grippando

  Matthew sensed that Jan was going to raise the E word again-escape. “I told you, you’re on your own.”

  “Yeah. That’s what the Colombian said, too.”

  “You talked to Emilio?”

  “Of course. Haven’t you noticed the guards swarming all over me for the past three days? Emilio tipped them off.”

  “Emilio’s no snitch.”

  “Like hell. Why do you think he got a new pair of boots for today’s march? No one else got so much as a clean pair of socks.”

  “They gave him new boots because he needed them.”

  “I keep telling you, fisherman, it’s every man for himself here. Can’t you see that we have to do something?”

  Matthew didn’t answer. He glanced toward a group of guerrillas sharing a tin of sausages and some white beans. The prisoners hadn’t eaten a thing since breakfast-half a cup of coffee and a handful of cold rice. Matthew had forgotten how it had felt not to be hungry.

  “Open your eyes,” Jan continued. “They’ve got too many prisoners. They can’t even feed all of us, let alone guard us. Either we make a run for it, or it’s like the Flea Man said: They’ll whittle down the group one way or another. We’ll both end up dead like Will.”

  “Nobody’s going to end up like Will unless we do something stupid.”

  “You’re wrong. In their eyes you and I are exactly like Will. If they can’t make a quick buck off us, we’re not worth the trouble. The docile ones like the Flea Man they’ll keep forever. But guys like us, it’s fish or cut bait. You can relate to that one, can’t you, fisherman?”

  “You’re paranoid.”

  “It’s the way these guerrillas think. They’re bored, and we’re their entertainment. They got rid of Will, and pretty soon they’ll decide that somebody else is trouble and needs to go.”

  “So what are you saying? I’m next?”

  “No. Clearly it’s me. But once I’m gone, it’s only a matter of time before they take care of you.”

  “They’re not going to kill me and give up a ransom.”

  “Don’t kid yourself. That Japanese couple is loaded, and the Japanese have a reputation for always paying. Joaquin doesn’t need your ransom. One snag in the negotiations, he’ll kill you for the fun of it.”

  Up ahead, the scouts emerged from the jungle and reported to Joaquin. Apparently they’d found what they were looking for. Two guards approached the Japanese couple. Joaquin and three others came for Matthew and Jan.

  “What now?” said Jan.

  “We’re going for a walk,” said Joaquin.

  “Where?”

  “You’ll see.”

  They walked single file with the Japanese prisoners toward a densely forested part of the jungle. It was more overgrown and much darker than anything they’d covered all day. An animal growled from somewhere in the thicket, and the Japanese woman clung to her husband. He sniped at Joaquin in Japanese, and the tone if not the words conveyed his message. From behind, a guerrilla shoved him and brandished his weapon, threatening him into silence. The mysterious animal growled again. Hundreds of birds suddenly exploded from the tree branches high overhead. It was nearly deafening, the flutter of wings and all that screeching and cawing. They warned of danger. Unfazed, Joaquin and his two machete-wielding scouts led them deeper into the jungle, brushing back bamboo stalks and droopy green elephant ear plants. Five armed guerrillas followed closely behind the prisoners.

  Matthew wasn’t sure what was going on. It seemed odd that the three Colombian prisoners had been left behind.

  “Stop,” Joaquin said.

  They’d reached a clearing at the edge of a cliff. A canyon stretched before them, a huge gorge with steep walls that descended at least seven hundred feet. A muddy river snaked tortuously below, its raging waters the only audible sound in the valley. With this view, Matthew gained a full appreciation of Colombia’s nickname, “the Tibet of the Andes.”

  He focused on what at first glance looked like a huge bird swooping across the canyon, and then he realized it was a man-carrying a pig. A steel cable stretched from one side of the mountain to the other, which Matthew hadn’t noticed right away, because it was covered in part by a low-hanging cloud. The man was seated in a rope sling, zipping across the canyon on a simple pulley-and-tackle system, easily topping thirty-five miles per hour. He was just fifty feet away from the cliff’s edge and closing fast. The cable whined as he applied the brake, a crude wooden fork that the rider squeezed to create friction. The added weight of the pig had given him too much momentum, and he slammed into a wall of old tires that brought him to an abrupt stop. He picked himself up, and he and his pig scampered away without fuss. As if this were just an everyday trip from the market in a country with too few roads and bridges.

  Matthew watched as one of the guerrillas strapped himself into the sling on a parallel cable that sloped in the opposite direction for return traffic. He pushed himself off the cliff, shouting like a bungee jumper as he sped away on the steel cable, hanging perilously above a river that churned two hundred meters below, and finally disappearing into the thick white cloud that filled the valley.

  “What do you make of this?” Matthew whispered.

  “I don’t know,” Jan said under his breath. “But I wouldn’t count on it being good.”

  Matthew exchanged a wary glance with the Japanese prisoners, nervously waiting his turn.

  33

  Matthew could not believe his eyes.After crossing the canyon, they’d walked for twenty minutes, mostly uphill along a narrow and at times overgrown jungle path. The last hundred-yard stretch had been downright frightening. The path was at its narrowest along the edge of a steep cliff. The rocks were slippery, the footing unsure. Any lapse in concentration could have meant a two-hundred-foot drop straight down into the ravine, instant death. But finally they’d reached their destination, a surprising reward.

  “Will you look at that,” said Matthew.

  Before them was a large pond, a warm and wet hole in the jungle canopy where the sun streamed in. Clouds of steam wafted up from the calm, flat waters. Matthew could feel the heat in the soles of his shoes, and each step toward the water brought the audible crunch of ancient volcanic cinders beneath the overgrowth of fallen jungle foliage, grass, and mosses that had gathered over the centuries. Joaquin had brought them to an extinct crater, a tiny geothermal paradise where nature warmed the waters to bath temperature. To a man who hadn’t bathed in weeks, this was heaven on earth.

  “You have ten minutes,” said Joaquin. “Head above water at all times. If we lose sight of any one of you, we shoot everyone.”

  The guerrillas positioned themselves at evenly spaced intervals along the water’s edge. The prisoners looked at each other with some humility. Without words, Matthew and Jan agreed not to lay eyes on the woman. Matthew removed his clothes eagerly and immersed himself up to his neck. On so many levels it was sensual overload, and for the first time in nearly a month he was actually smiling. The waters warmed him to his core, soothing the elbows, wrists, and other joints that ached from cold and wet mountain air. He would have loved to dunk his head under and swim to the bottom, but he didn’t doubt for a minute that Joaquin would commence fire on him and the others the instant he disappeared from view. He swam the breaststroke, the first exercise he’d had since jumping off the boat in Cartagena-and the thought of Cartagena brought him back to reality. Here he was frolicking in the warm waters, almost grateful to Joaquin. Gratitude was the last thing he should have been feeling. He could never let himself forget that his Nicaraguan friends, Hector and his son Livan, were dead at the hands of this monster.

  Floating on his back, Matthew glanced toward Joaquin on the shoreline. They didn’t make eye contact. The guerrilla was fixated on the naked Japanese woman, having positioned himself perfectly for a peep show.

  Ten minutes passed quickly. Joaquin called them back to shore. Matthew swam as close in as possible, then rose and ran to his clothes on the rocks
. Jan was right behind him. The warm waters had turned his pasty pallor pink, and the air felt very cold. Ten meters to their left, the Japanese couple helped each other to shore. The woman covered herself quickly, still enduring the weight of Joaquin’s stare.

  “Leave the old clothes,” shouted Joaquin.

  They stopped dressing. One of the other guerrillas came forward and gave each of them clean trousers and a warm shirt. The Japanese bowed and thanked him profusely. Even Jan muttered a reluctant “Gracias.” Matthew just took the clothes, in no mood to thank a murdering kidnapper for the necessities of life.

  They dressed quickly, and Matthew was happy to leave his smelly garments behind. He hated to indulge himself in false hopes, but one thought consumed him: Could this mean they’re letting us go?

  Instantly, thoughts of Cathy flooded his mind. He wondered how his wife was handling the pregnancy, if she was showing yet, if she’d started decorating the baby’s room. He wondered if she’d received any of the late-night messages he’d tried to convey through nothing more than mind power. He had no idea if telepathy worked, but it was all he had, and he concentrated very hard when he told her that he loved her every night. He thought of Nick and Lindsey, too, but that was risky. He’d made mistakes with his children, and the memories weren’t always pleasant. A guerrilla camp in the mountains was no place for regrets, not for a man who knew that he might never even see his family again, let alone make things right.

  Matthew was buttoning his new shirt, then froze. In all the excitement over new clothes, he hadn’t noticed the dozen new guerrillas who’d descended upon them. Matthew didn’t recognize any of them as being from Joaquin’s group, though they were all just as young and dressed similarly in fatigues, bandannas, and a variety of hats. It was a goofy thought, but Matthew was suddenly reminded of the Friday’s restaurant chain in the States, where all the waiters wore the same uniforms but showed their individuality through hat selection. These new guys could have been FARC, but the dragon insignia was conspicuously absent.

  “I think they’re ELN,” said Jan.

  Over dinner one night, Emilio had told Matthew about the National Liberation Army, or ELN, Colombia’s other major Marxist guerrilla organization, second in strength to FARC and equally prolific at the kidnapping trade. Crossing the canyon by cable had evidently taken the prisoners into the ELN’s territory.

  “What do they want?” asked Matthew in a voice just loud enough for Jan to hear him.

  “Us.”

  Matthew finished buttoning his shirt, watching the guerrillas closely. Joaquin was talking intensely with one of the ELN, a short guy with a thick black mustache He and Joaquin were the only two guerrillas in the entire group who looked to be over the age of twenty. They spoke back and forth for several minutes, and then finally Joaquin brought him and two other ELN guerrillas down toward the prisoners.

  The ELN guy strutted past Matthew, then Jan, then the Japanese. He stopped before each of them, glanced up and down, then moved to the next, as if he were General Patton inspecting his troops. When he’d finished, he and Joaquin walked to one side and continued their discussion.

  “Joaquin’s selling us,” said Jan. “That’s why he gave us all a bath and cleaned us up.”

  The thought of being spiffed up like a used car before trade-in infuriated Matthew. “He tried to sell me once before. To FARC.”

  “You better hope the ELN gives him his price. If he gets the idea that you’re unsalable, that’s not a good thing.”

  “I don’t need that kind of trouble.”

  “We’re already in trouble. I’ve said it all along: We’re too many for Joaquin to handle. If ELN won’t give him his price, he’ll have to get rid of at least one of us.”

  “Maybe he’ll turn one of the women loose.”

  “Dream on, fisherman. It’s going to be either you or me. And he isn’t going to sell us off too cheap, and he isn’t turning anyone loose.”

  From a distance Matthew watched Joaquin more closely. The discussion with the ELN leader was well out of earshot, but they were standing in the open, and Joaquin was waving his arms with emotion. It was clear from the expression on his face that the negotiations weren’t going his way.

  Finally Joaquin shouted something in anger and stormed away.

  “?Vamos!” he told his men.

  The guerrillas rounded up the prisoners. Without another word to the ELN, they headed back into the jungle, single file down the same path that had brought them there. No one talked, except Joaquin, who was cursing FARC and the ELN for their greediness. He was fuming, and as they continued down the overgrown path, it made everyone edgy, even the other guerrillas.

  The path was becoming treacherous. The footing was unsure, and a misty rain made the rocks even more slippery than on the way up. The warm waters of the pond had actually made Matthew’s legs rubbery, and after a full day of marching, fatigue was taking its toll. He forced himself to concentrate, especially on this narrow stretch of path along the cliff with the deep ravine below. For some reason going down was proving to be more difficult than climbing up. The grade seemed steeper on the descent, and if you focused on the river two hundred feet below, vertigo could easily overtake you. The group proceeded one at a time. Three guerrillas went first to show the prisoners the proper technique. They didn’t walk straight down the path but took half steps sideways with their backs to the cliff and their chests toward the mountainside. Two hands were on the face of the mountain at all times.

  Next it was Matthew’s turn.

  Despite the danger and his need to focus, he couldn’t clear his mind of a terrible sinking sensation. He remembered what Emilio had told him after the FARC deal had fallen through. The worst place for a kidnap victim to be was with a rogue criminal like Joaquin. The survival rate was better with an established Marxist group that had the resources to hold prisoners for longer periods of time.

  A scream pierced the jungle, the desperate cry of a dying man.

  It was hard to tell where it had come from-Matthew could have sworn it was below him. Confused, he hurried ahead to the base of the narrow pass. He looked back and saw Jan, the Swede, and he was immediately concerned. The order of descent had been Matthew, the Japanese man, and then Jan.

  Behind Jan was Nisho, the Japanese woman. She was hysterical. One of the guerrillas grabbed her and carried her down the rest of the way. Two other guerrillas were at the cliff’s edge. Matthew hurried over and looked down into the ravine.

  The Japanese man lay dead, facedown, his body smashed on the rocks near the river a hundred feet below. The wife was screaming inconsolably. Grief was what Matthew thought at first, but she was swinging wildly and cursing in Japanese, seemingly more angry than anguished. One guerrilla wasn’t enough to control her. Two others finally came over to subdue her.

  Joaquin was last on the scene, having doubled back from his lead position. “?Que paso?” What happened?

  Jan answered quickly, “?El americano le empujo!”

  Nisho was still screaming wildly, and Matthew wasn’t sure if he’d heard Jan quite right. “I pushed him?” he said, incredulous.

  Two guerrillas grabbed him. “No, no!” said Matthew.

  “Si, si,” said Jan. “?Matthew le empujo!”

  Matthew locked eyes with the Swede. In a flash, that earlier nervous talk of Joaquin’s having more prisoners than he could handle came back to Matthew, and he realized what Jan had done: Some prisoners needed to be eliminated, and Jan had made sure that he wouldn’t be one of them.

  The crying widow was fighting to break free of the guerrillas’ grasp, trying to crawl on her hands and knees to the cliff’s edge to see or perhaps join her fallen husband. The guerrillas restrained her to the point of exhaustion, but the wailing continued.

  Joaquin had fire in his eyes as he walked up to Matthew and, without warning, delivered a monstrous sucker punch to the solar plexus. Matthew doubled over, sucking air, but the guerrillas held him up, forcing him to stand
on his own two feet.

  “He’s lying,” said Matthew, barely able to speak.

  “You’re lying,” said Joaquin. He grabbed Matthew by the hair and yanked him straight up to the standing position. “And don’t think you won’t pay for this.”

  He unleashed another blow to the same spot. Matthew went down onto his knees, gasping for air. Another guerrilla kicked him from behind, an army boot directly into his left kidney, which sent him sprawling face first into the dirt.

  Matthew coiled into the fetal position to fend off any further blows. He could hardly breathe, and the dizziness was making it almost impossible to see. Mustering all his remaining strength, he managed to turn his sights on the Swede, but his fellow captive just looked away. Jan had been saying it for days, though Matthew hadn’t wanted to believe him. Now he knew it was true.

  They were becoming their own Pitcairn Island. It was every man for himself.

  34

  The Miami-Dade County courthouse was practically ancient by Miami standards, an imposing stone tower and distinctive bump on the city’s modern skyline. My first visit had been on a field trip in middle school, though it wasn’t the massive fluted columns or tiered granite steps that had impressed me so much I’d decided to become a lawyer. It was the unbridled energy, the almost perpetual state of confusion.

  On Tuesday morning it was abuzz with the usual chaos. From every direction swarms of people converged on the main entrance, squeezed through the metal detectors, and then raced across the lobby for a spot on a slow-moving elevator that would eventually land them before one of twenty-three judges on fifteen floors. It was a nonstop stream of lawyers and litigants, witnesses and jurors, court employees and members of the media. Thrown into the mix were the venerable retirees who had nothing better to do than pack a liverwurst sandwich into a paper sack and head over to Flagler Street to enjoy the real-life version of The People’s Court. They were like unofficial court historians, capable of rattling off stories about the giants in Miami’s trial bar the way baseball fans knew the legends of the sport. For them, trial was theater, at times the theater of the absurd, and the longest-running show around was right here in this old building. A few could even wax nostalgic about the old days when the courthouse also served as the stockade, well before my time. Criminal cases were no longer heard here. These days the docket was strictly civil.